From Staff Reports 

LANDRUM, S.C. —Jack Roper and the Weatherman Band finished its performance with a bang with Kool & the Gang’s 1980 soul chart-topper “Celebration,” getting many in the socially distanced audience to get on their feet — finally — to shimmy and shake at the annual Music at the Tracks outdoor summer concert series here July 18.

The band began the two-hour show with K.C. & the Sunshine Band’s disco classic  “Boogie Shoes,” followed by Wilson Pickett’s soul hit, “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You” and a host of other mostly classic rock and soul classics.

An estimated 75 to 100 people attended the concert, but several Music at the Tracks’ regulars told a Daily Planet reporter that the crowd in past years usually numbered about double — and they conjectured that fears stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic kept many people away.

Noting that the concert was held outside the Landrum Depot next to the railroad tracks, a band member said early in the show that “a special train will be coming through later.... Since we’re next to the train tracks, there’ll be the ‘Love Train,’” a reference to the O’Jays 1972 soul smash. In response, the crowd cheered.  

During “Love Train,” to the crowd’s delight, the lyrics were changed to: 

“The next stop we make ... will be in Landrum, South Carolina,

“Tell all the people in Chesney and Spartanburg, too ....

“All of your brothers in Anderson / Tell all the people in Egypt and Israel, too....”