Three local rock groups will headline the second annual July 4 concert at Palisades High School’s football stadium, as part of the town’s Independence Day festivities. The House Band, the Mayberrys and the Elevaters will perform on stage starting at 6:30 p.m., prior to the traditional fireworks show at about 9 p.m. The concert will also feature Palisades High alum Mimi Vitale, a talented singer who won the 2000 Miss Palisades contest; the PaliHi Concert Band; and other family-friendly entertainment. Admission is just $2 a person at the door (though larger donations are appreciated in order to help defray costs and support the school’s music department). Composed of family men with a penchant for Nirvana and Radiohead, the veteran group House Band and the nascent Mayberrys will play an array of original compositions and familiar covers. The predominantly 20-something Elevaters will close the concert. ‘Our goal is to continue the festive mood that starts with the Will Rogers race and transfers into the parade,’ said the House Band’s Keith Turner, who is co-organizing the concert entertainment. ‘We also want to feature Palisades talent: professional, amateur and student musicians and entertainers.’ Formed nearly a decade ago, the House Band includes three Pacific Palisades residents (Sheldon Cohn and John Nara, each on guitar, and Turner, on drums), plus two former ones: Malibu resident Doug Masterson (lead singer) and Andy Stewart (bass). ‘We’re a jam band,’ Turner said, ‘and we’ll be playing originals and covers, ranging from classic rock and the Dead, through grunge and alternative rock.’ Turner, who has his own law firm in town (specializing in handling real-estate disputes), is married to Michelle Rubin, who grew up in the Palisades. Her parents and her brother also live here. Demographically similar, the Mayberrys are fronted by Scott Humphrey of Santa Monica on lead guitar and lead vocals, but also feature Palisades residents Julian Brew (bass) and Gary Spivak (drums). Formed just last summer, the group has already played gigs all over Los Angeles. Brew, who was a member of the House Band at last year’s Independence Day concert at PaliHi, describes the Mayberrys’ sound as ‘driving power pop with strong melodies and harmonies and good edge,’ influenced by The White Stripes, The Kinks, Radiohead, Oasis Nirvana and others. ‘A foot in the past and a boot in the present,’ said Brew, summing up his band’s brand of rock. Are the Mayberrys named after the popular Swarthmore Avenue restaurant? ‘Purely coincidental,’ Brew said, explaining that they named themselves after the fictional town from ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ because of Pacific Palisades’ ‘small-town feel.’ ‘We started when Gary and I met at a restaurant and we both realized that we had similar musical tastes. I had known Scott for many years and thought he’d be a great fit. So we brought our individual songs into the studio and put our imprint on them.’ Humphrey may hail from Santa Monica, but wife Sharon Orrange is a Palisades native. As Brew put it, ‘She’s a PaliHi grad, so he’s in.’   The Elevaters consist of Benjamin Hall (lead singer/percussion), Andre Morton (drums), Itai Shapira (bass), Sam Golzari (lead vocalist/piano), David Noily (guitar), and Miles Gregley (vocalist). Among the bands, they might be the most unique”and urban”with their cosmopolitan blend of funk, soul and hip hop. They derive inspiration from such acts as Prince, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, the Roots and the Fugees. Managed by Palisadian Christina Soufo, the Elevaters released their first album, ‘Rising,’ in 2007. Their first single, ‘The One,’ made the rotation on Garth Trinidad’s KCRW program, ‘Chocolate City.’ In concert, the Elevaters have shared stages with hip-hop luminaries KRS-One and De La Soul, and the sextet has toured extensively nationwide. John Petrick, a member of the organizing committeee for the parade and the fireworks show, brought The Elevaters aboard via his connection with singer Hall. ‘John is one of my best friends,’ Hall said. ‘He said, ‘Hey, we’re doing this concert and it’d be a crime if you didn’t play it.” The band’s token Palisadian, Hall credits his former Paul Revere choir teacher, Jan Smith, for giving him the music bug: ‘She taught me how to sing in a group, which is something I still apply.’ Moving up to PaliHi’s theater arts department, Hall honed his performance skills in school productions. Senior year, he played Tony in ‘Westside Story,’ and then it was on to UCLA, where the nascent Elevaters took shape as a Westwood coffeehouse act. ‘We were an idealistic, kind of college-age collective trying to find our own identity,’ Hall said. After graduating in 2003, he moved to South America and lived in Colombia for two years. ‘All of us went our separate ways for a couple of years,’ Hall said, but after he returned to Los Angeles, ‘we realized that what we had as a group and a community with our friends at UCLA was a unique and powerful thing.’ Now living in Santa Monica, Hall teaches music at the Village Arts Center on Sunset. ‘So a lot of people know me around town, but they don’t know what I do beyond teaching kids.’ On July 4, Hall promises an ‘up-tempo, upbeat’ Elevaters show. ‘As our name implies,’ he said, ‘the intention of the music is to lift people’s spirits and get people dancing and open up their hearts and enjoy.’
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