The Riveter Story, Part 3: Along came Kelley

When I left off the Riveter story last, we had four girls (some who knew how to play their instruments and some ... well, not so much), a name and our first gig.

We practiced and learned seven or so songs ... barely. The day of the party found me full of jitters. I'd never really performed like this before and knew little about how work all the music related equipment let alone my guitar.

But we did it. We played our songs and people looked on in disbelief because we didn't suck.

We probably should've sucked.

But we didn't.

After we were done playing, we were giddy with excitement. We were in a band ... and we did not suck.

We continued on, practiced, got another backyard party, then we got our first nightclub show.

We were ecstatic. A nightclub ... not a friend's backyard.

We practiced our songs and even included our first original "Ham Pants." We opened for a now-defunct jam bad from New Orleans, Saaraba.

Tons of people came to see our debut public performance. We were nervous. But we did not suck.

The crowd was generous and we ate it up. We were bitten.

We worked on more songs, originals and covers and worked on getting more shows. For the next couple of years we played festivals and clubs around the Grand Valley. We even got a show playing in a showcase in San Francisco.

Oh yeah, the big time.

We all took a road trip out to my old stomping grounds. Overall the trip was fun.

We played two shows. The first nightclub show was disastrous, but the showcase at Lennon Studios went really well. It was a crowd that knew music and they dug what we were putting out.

We were buoyed yet again.

Then our singer, Sally, said she was looking to move on to do other things, a new job, a new city, no girl rock 'n' roll band.

We immediately started putting out the word that Riveter was looking for a new lead singer.

The first girl that came to meet with us was a nice, hippie-type who played her acoustic guitar and sang at coffee shops. She had a lovely voice, but we weren't certain that her earthy ways were going to fit our rock 'n' roll band.

But she vowed to learn three of our songs and come back and rock us.

And she did.

That little hippie chick was our Kelley who is now our bona fide rock 'n' roll lead singer.

Kelley puts on a show like no other and we're super happy she joined our band. She's been working on her electric guitar skillz, too, so she's double awesome.

Since Kelley's arrival, Riveter has definitely taken on more of hard rock 'n' roll edge and we like it.