DeKalb band takes up restaurant residency
The meditierraneo House Band played for Zac Efron, Dennis Quaid, Heather Graham and other members of the cast and crew of the film Heartland, which was shot in DeKalb.
October 19, 2011
It’s not every day that Dennis Quaid, Zac Efron and Heather Graham show up in DeKalb.
So imagine the surprise to the Mediterraneo House Band, the resident musicians of the Mediterraneo Grill, 122 E. Lincoln Highway, when they got to play for the cast and crew of the film Heartland, which was shot in DeKalb.
“We got to meet Zac and Heather and [other cast and crew] last week,” said Sam Hight, junior music performance major and tenor saxophone player for the Mediterraneo House Band. “It was a lot of fun.”
Since early September, the Mediterraneo House Band has been entertaining patrons of the downtown eatery at 7 p.m. every Thursday night. With a set mixing jazz, funk and latin bossanovas, the group aims to serve smooth music along with dinner.
Hight says the band came together this year when a new crop of undergrads made their debut at NIU’s school of music.
“This year, there was a unique combination of freshman…and juniors that wanted to be in bands,” he said. “I just saw a lot of motivation in the freshman in the music school this semester and decided to collaborate with them.”
Bound by a desire to play outside of the “rock” genre and to gig in more intimate settings like restaurants, the band found a reoccurring gig with Mediterraneo.
Music graduate student Omar Almusfi, the owner of Mediterraneo, said that he let the band start playing every Thursday – the grill’s BYOB night – in hopes that he might bring more students in to dine.
He may be on to something. Hight said that the crowd has been steadily building each week, with last week’s crowd (including the 15 or so actors and crew members from the Heartland set) being the largest.
“There was another table in the back from Minnesota of about 10 or 11 people,” Hight said. “They would clap for us before we even finished our solos. It was a lot of fun. We had a good momentum going.”
Hight seems confident in the Mediterraneo House Band. He has even lined up several shows at other restaurants over winter break.
“This is also the first band I’ve ever put together,” he said. “I’ve been pretty happy with it.”
Songs to expect from the Mediterraneo House Band:
“Summertime” – George Gershwin
“They Say it’s Wonderful” – from the musical Annie, Get Your Gun