Feeling the Blues Vibe
By Pat Muir, Staff Writer
Daily Record, Ellensburg, WA
Published 10/18/03
The only constant in an Open Road Band performance is “that feeling,” band members said.
The feeling they referred to is that low-down rock and blues vibe, that intangible thing they see in artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Beyond that, the band’s shows are tailored to its audiences – more blues for some, more rock for others, for example. “Regardless of what we’re playing, we always try to put that feeling in them,” said Aaron Giedra, the 28-year-old lead singer and guitarist of The Open Road Band.As for Aaron Giedra and Alana Thew, they’ve never had a professional lesson between them. They’re both from musical families, and Giedra said he started teaching himself guitar at about 17. Later he taught Thew, who now plays bass for the band. “We just played together around the house,” Thew said. “And it grew into this!”Now the band is a full-time job, Giedra said. And the couple has less living-room furniture than it has high-end musical equipment, Thew added.“We put a lot of time and effort into trying to do this right,” Giedra said. Skimping on sound is not an option, he said.The band’s live sets include a variety reaching from John Lee Hooker and B.B. King to the Beatles and the Animals. Sometimes there’s even some Ricky Nelson or Hank Williams in there, he said. The Open Road Band doesn’t play exacting cover versions of those artists’ songs, though, eschewing strict accuracy in favor of “that feeling.”Whether it’s note for note with the original artist is irrelevant,” Giedra said. “I’m never going to be Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray or John Fogerty, but if I can take the parts to make my own music, then you’ve got something cool going on.”
