If you are fortunate enough to live in or near Marlinton in Pocahontas County, WV, make your way to the Opera House this Saturday, November 12 to see The Steel Wheels in concert at 7:30 pm. I’ll be there! I’ve been a fan of these guys for a while now, but this is the first chance I’m getting to see them live. I can’t wait. I learned about them from Bicycle Times magazine’s June 2010 issue which reported on their pedal-powered, seven night, concert tour. They strapped their instruments and merchandise to their bikes and headed from town to town, covering nearly 300 miles. This wasn’t some stunt, followed by a support vehicle in case they got tired and needed a lift; this was a genuine concert tour on bicycles. In fact, they did another this year. As I read I learned that they were based in Harrisonburg, VA, a place I knew well having gone to James Madison University for my first two years of college.
Those two things alone were reason enough reason to like these guys. They hail from Virginia, and they tour by bicycle. (Not always, of course. They have a national following, and a bicycle tour across the entire country is impractical, at best.)
They were praiseworthy, but were they any good? Now I had yet to check out the music.