SCHENECTADY — An all-star celebration of The Band’s historic 1976 farewell concert kicks off a multi-city tour in November. Night Three of the tour will be staged at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady on Nov. 5. 

The Last Waltz Tour 2022 features a lineup led by Warren Haynes and Don Was with Jamey Johnson, Kathleen Edwards, Anders Osborne, Dave Malone, John Medeski, Cyril Neville, Terrence Higgins, Bob Margolin, Mark Mullins & The Levee Horns (featuring the original horn arrangements of Allen Toussaint).

For more information and tickets, go online to: TheLastWaltzTour.live. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — For two weekends, starting on Friday, October 7, Home Made Theater will present the musical Nine; music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, book by Arthur Kopit, and adapted from the Italian by Mario Fratti.

Based loosely on Federico Fellini’s movie 8 1/2, Nine features one man and the myriad of women in his life. Celebrated but impetuous film director Guido Contini, succumbing to the pressures of filming his latest film epic, suffers a midlife crisis. One by one, women from his past and present – including his mother, his wife, his mistress, and his leading lady – haunt, instruct, scold, seduce, and encourage him until he finally learns to grow up.

The Director of Nine is Michael McDermott, whose previous Home Made Theater directing credits include Almost, Maine, Barefoot in the Park, and The Game’s Afoot. The artistic team includes Musical Director Richard Cherry, Choreographer Heather D’Arcy, Scenic Designer Jennie Sinnott, Lighting Designer Matthew Kopans, Sound Designer Anne-Marie Baker, Costume Designer Sharon Greene, Properties Designer Maura Pickett, and Stage Manager Christine MacLellan.

The cast of Nine includes several performers new to the Home Made Theater stage, including Helen Annely, Caleb Blackler, Abby Countermine, Heather D’Arcy, Debra Mead, Amanda Robie, Eric Shovah, and Ellya Winchester. Veterans of previous Home Made Theater productions include Andrea Burger, Christine Geraci, Melissa Mason Lacijan, Joelle Malinowski, Deborah Otto-Jones, Sonya Sidhu-Izzo, Arlette St. Romain, and Isabella Varno

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays, Oct. 7-8, and 14-15 at 7:30 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays, Oct. 8, 9, 15 & 16 at 2 p.m. All performances are at the Dee Sarno Theater, inside Saratoga Arts, 320 Broadway in Saratoga Springs. Tickets are available at Home Made Theater’s website, www.HomeMadeTheater.org, or by calling 518-587-4427 during business hours.

GLENS FALLS — For the seventh year, Adirondack Theatre Festival (ATF) will produce the Adirondack Film Festival, which again this year will be presented in a hybrid model, both in-person and online. The screenings will take place at the Charles R. Wood Theater and Crandall Library in downtown Glens Falls. 

An opening night reception Thursday, Oct. 13 at the Queensbury Hotel will feature an evening of music videos capped by “Blondie: Vivir en la Habana,” a short documentary about a path-breaking concert in Cuba by the band Blondie, and a Q&A with director Rob Roth. 

The band’s 2019 concert was part of an official cultural exchange between Havana and New York City. Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry pointed out that Havana’s resemblance to pre-gentrified New York made her feel like she’d been there before.  

“There’s so much beautiful architecture which has deteriorated due to the fact it’s a Caribbean island and salt air is disastrous to the edifices,” Harry told the NME last year, as the documentary had its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.  “They’re in a period of renewal and it made me think back fondly to the ‘70s and the crumbling decay of the Lower East Side.” 

Blondie burst out of the Max’s Kansas City and CBGB’s scene in downtown Manhattan in the mid-70s with their self-titled debut (most notably featuring the songs “X Offender,” and “Rip Her To Shreds”), and its follow-up LP ‘Plastic Letters.’ It was their third release, ‘Parallel Lines,’ that gained them national attention with the hit “Heart of Glass” in 1979 – and it is from this period and on into the ‘80s with the subsequent hit songs “Rapture” and “The Tide Is High” that the 18-minute documentary focuses its soundtrack. The film includes guitarist Chris Stein – who wasn’t able to go to the shows due to health reasons – and drummer Clem Burke, pounding away on his skins draped in – what else – a CBGB’s T-shirt.  

The opening night reception will feature a Q&A between ATF Producing Artistic Director Miriam Weisfeld and the film’s director Rob Roth. Roth – a longtime collaborator with Blondie, has also worked on projects with David Bowie, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna, among others.  

“Adirondack Film Festival is thrilled to host the regional premiere of Blondie: Vivir en la Habana and to introduce our community to its iconoclastic creator,” Weisfeld said. “Hearing firsthand from Rob Roth about the experience planning this trip to Cuba with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein and the unexpected twists and turns adds so much to the experience of seeing this innovative short film. Rob’s work spans film and theatre – just like the Adirondack Film Festival, which is the only film festival operated by a professional theatre company. I’m excited to be in conversation with Rob and ATF audiences about art, music, and storytelling across these different platforms. It’s what makes the Adirondack Film Festival unique.” 

The Adirondack Film Festival runs Oct. 13 – 15 and includes screenings of various features, documentaries, shorts, comedies, thrillers, and “Homegrown” Adirondack Region Films. There are a variety of ways that people may attend. 

“Last year we introduced an innovative range of options for audiences to participate in-person, online, or both. By far the most popular option was the ‘All-Access Pass,’ which grants entry to all the screenings in downtown Glens Falls, all the screenings online, plus panels, popcorn bars, parties, and the awards presentation. This year we’re excited to offer our patrons the same flexibility and the same great value,” ATF Managing Director Tracey Sullivan said in a statement.  

All-Access, In-Person, Virtual, and Day Passes are available at adkfilmfestival.org. With a few exceptions, the full lineup will be available both in-person and online. 

ALBANY — Multi-platinum, progressive rock group Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) – this week announced the dates for its 2022 winter tour, “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve – the Best of TSO & More.” 

The ensemble will perform in Albany at the MVP Arena on Nov. 30. 

TSO made a triumphant return to touring in 2021 with a 25th anniversary celebration of Christmas Eve and Other Stories. For 2022, TSO brings a completely updated presentation of the unforgettable, multi-generational holiday tradition, “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve,” to 60 cities across the nation.  This year’s tour kicks off on Wed., Nov. 16 with performances in Green Bay and Council Bluffs, and will conclude after 101 shows on Fri., Dec. 30.  

Tickets go on sale Friday, Sept. 16 at 10 a.m. local time. Beginning with the public on sale date, special $29 tickets (plus applicable taxes and fees) will be available for one week or while supplies last. For more details on tour dates and ticket sales, visit www.trans-siberian.com.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — A special performance by Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw and Grammy Award winning Sō Percussion – featuring their acclaimed collaboration “Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part,” will be staged at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23 at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. 

The event is free and open to the public and is part of an on-going series of collaborations between Saratoga Performing Arts Center and Skidmore College. 

“Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part,” released in 2021 by Nonesuch Records, features the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, violinist, and singer making her debut as a solo vocal artist with the acclaimed experimental percussion quartet Sō Percussion. 

Watch Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion perform ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me,” from the album at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0BI0NyUiNU. 

For more information, contact the Tang Visitor Services Desk at 518-580-8080 or tang@skidmore.edu, or visit the Tang website at https://tang.skidmore.edu. 

SARATOGA — He’s a little bit country-folk. He’s a little bit rock ‘n’ roll. He’s a little bit…Wayne’s World?

Michael Eck had just attended his third Richard Thompson show in three nights at Caffe Lena when he paused and shared some thoughts about his own career celebration set to stage at the historic Spa City venue.  

“To be on that stage? The same month as Richard Thompson? Oh. My. God. I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy,” he said with a chuckle, launching into a fairly decent reconstruction of the magical moment when Wayne and Garth met Alice Cooper. 

On Sunday Sept. 25, singer, songwriter, poet, writer and Capital Region legend Michael Eck will mark his 40th Anniversary in Live Music with an acoustic performance at Caffe Lena. And while he likely hates the tag as “legend,” worthy he certainly is. It is, to paraphrase the title of his new upcoming release – his turn to shine.  

On Friday, October 1, 1982, Eck made his live musical debut, playing electric guitar with a hardcore band during a Battle of the Bands at Bethlehem Central High School. On the planet, it was A Week. The musical “Cats” opened on Broadway kicking off a generation-long run. Marvin Gaye released what would be his last studio album (“when I get that feeling I want sexual healing” buried within its vinyl groove), and Sony launched the first consumer compact disc player. The sitcom Cheers premiered on broadcast TV. A Bomb attack in Teheran injured 700 people. Ronald Reagan was in The White House, Pope St. John Paul II was at The Vatican, a gallon of gas cost 91 cents, and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was but a mere few weeks away from being unleashing upon the world. 

A prolific longtime reviewer of music and theater, Eck has played the mandolin and the jug, the dobro, ukulele and jaw harp while performing with most every band you’ve ever heard of in the greater Capital Region over the past 40 years, and scores of others that you likely haven’t. Above all else, a six-string noisemaker has been his steady. 

“I always had a desire to be a guitar player. I wanted to be Bill Nelson, from Be-Bop Deluxe,” he says.  “But then punk rock came along and totally blew my mind: Oh, you can just do this teach-yourself-thing.” 

The musical passion-bug seeped into his psyche at a young age. 

“My oldest brother Billy, who recently passed, would play 45’s. We had a battery-operated turntable, and we’d buy plastic bags filled with jukebox 45’s from the old LJ Mullen Pharmacy,” Eck recalled.  “We’d listen to those in the back of the car while the country music that my parents were listening to would come in from the car speakers. Hearing all that music at the same time…it just made me into a music nut from a very young age.” 

The first album purchased with intent? “’Frampton,’ by Peter Frampton – it was the one just before ‘Frampton Comes Alive.’” 

His first attended concert featured Aerosmith at The Palace Theater. “March 3, 1978,” he recalls without a flinch. “Concrete seats in the back of the balcony. I was 13 years old and they were my favorite band.” 

“Aerosmith blasted the roof off the Palace Theater to a capacity crowd of lucky people,” wrote reviewer Al Baca in the Albany Student Press, in the days following the concert. “Unless one is a corpse in the advanced stages of rigor mortis, it is impossible to leave an Aerosmith concert without feeling emotionally drained.” 

“The Palace Theater as a young kid…seeing rock shows at the old dirty Palace before it got renovated, that was something really special to me. This is music, happening right in front of me, being played by people. I just couldn’t imagine anything better. I’m still a voracious live music attender,” Eck says. “Seeing Patti Smith for the first time changed my life. There was a freedom there that just spoke to me.” Decades later, in a church in Albany he and Patti would spend an afternoon together, rehearsing, laughing, and performing. Grooving across state lines, watching jazz saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett performing at Great Barrington’s Club Helsinki is one lasting “just amazing” night of music. 

But to think that Eck’s 40th anniversary in live music is strictly nostalgia is to be misguided. The celebration gig at Caffe Lena will mix old favorites and previously unheard new tunes, as well as serve as the release party for his new album, “Your Turn To Shine.”  

“The great thing about Caffe Lena is that as much as people think of it as a historic place, and it is – it’s always been about the future. What’s going to happen years in the future is happening at Caffe Lena now, and I think that’s terribly exciting,” Eck says.

“What people can expect at the Lena show will be all songs I wrote, all original material – about half the songs from my previous four albums, and half new songs.” 

Eck made his solo artist debut in 1995 with the release of his “Cowboy Black,” album, and followed with  “Resonator,” “ Small Town Blues,”  and “In My Shoes.”  

“Your Turn To Shine” features 12 new songs, – three of which were written a handful of years ago, he explains, and the other nine written in this new era: during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, and for Eck personally, following a stroke. 

“I had a stroke a year-and-a-half-ago. It was a completely life-changing experience, but, oh well – we take each day as it comes. Health-wise, I think I’m doing OK. I can walk and talk, and depending on the time of day, better than at other times of the day. I can take that as a bonus,” Eck says. “Every day is different, but playing music and writing songs are really good therapy for me.  It does a lot more for me spiritually even than it does physically. And my family has been incredibly supportive. I’m feeling pretty lucky.” 

His children Lakota Ruby-Eck – on guitar, and Lillierose Ruby-Eck – on violin, will be joining him for a few songs at Caffe Lena.  

That spirituality? 

“My spirituality comes from a belief in humanity. And a belief in the power of the arts,” Eck says. “I think we can find – to use that term ‘spirituality’ – in whatever we look to or choose to find that. And for me it’s in people, and the arts.” 

Michael Eck’s 40th Anniversary in Live Music will be presented at 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25 at Caffe Lena, 47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs. Call 518-583-0022, or go to: www.caffelena.org. Physical copies of Eck’s fifth album, “Your Turn To Shine—New Songs, Live At WEXT,” will be available on disc at the event, with digital distribution to follow.