Tampa wedding band Phase5 jams with Sir Paul McCartney
It was, in almost every respect, a carbon-copy weekend gig for Josh Walther and his wedding band, Phase5. Booked a year in advance at a familiar Winter Park country club. Intimate, 200 people, tops. Decent vegan spread.
"The decor wasn't extravagant," he said. "It was just a typical family gathering."
Totally typical, yes — except for the part where Paul McCartney showed up. And hopped onstage. And grabbed the microphone. And sang I Saw Her Standing There. And left Walther and his band reeling from the musical memory of a lifetime.
It's a bucket list moment for any musician, sharing the stage with Sir Paul, and when you play in a wedding band from Tampa, it's one you're 99.999 percent sure you'll never experience. But it happened on Saturday for Phase5, who played the graduation party of McCartney's stepson Arlen Blakeman, a communications major at Rollins College in Winter Park, just north of Orlando.
A clip of the performance hit Facebook and YouTube over the weekend, and Walther, 33, has since been inundated with kudos from everyone he knows, and many more he doesn't.
By: Jay Cridlin
Source : Tampa Bay Times
