One of the area's premier bands will play its final gig together at the Adelphia in Marietta Saturday night.
The Fossils have performed rock and acoustic-rock tunes for audiences throughout the region for the last five years.
"We all have professional careers, and it's just getting too difficult to keep our schedules synched," explained guitar-and mandolin-slinger John Walsh, who formed the group with five fellow musicians in 2006.
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The Fossils
"I had an offer to do a spot for the Evergreen Concert series (at Washington State Community College)," he said.
Walsh called together some friends he'd played music with off and on over the years, including keyboardist Bill White, bassist Dave Tenney, percussionist Dave Laing, guitarist Jeff George and drummer Andrew Colvin.
"We also pulled (guitarist/songwriter) Todd Burge into the mix at the beginning," Walsh said.
White said each of the musicians had previously played together in groups of two or three.
"The six of us had never played in combination but something just seemed to click at that time," White said. "Dave Laing calls it an accident."
The band started taking offers to play and suddenly discovered there were a lot of people who shared their love of rock and acoustic-rock music.
A look at their playlist reveals a wide range of tunes, from a cover of James Taylor's "Country Road" to "La Grange" by ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."
"It's a great escape for us - the music is a kind of common denominator that we all enjoy playing and everyone has a lot of fun," White added.
Walsh said it was 2007 before the group officially became known as The Fossils.
"I had been working on a CD with Dave George (Jeff's brother) in 2006-2007 - about the same time as the Evergreen series - and we titled it 'Fossils, Eon Rising,'" he said. "So Dave and I called the group 'Fossils.'"
The Fossils was the first band to play at the Adelphia when the music hall opened on Second Street in 2010.
"We kind of became the house band there," Walsh said.
So it's probably fitting that the group plays its farewell gig at the Adelphia.
"It's all good, though - no one's going into rehab over this," Walsh said. "But this gig is going to be huge fun for everyone."
He and White both noted the six musicians will no doubt perform in different combinations in the future but not as The Fossils unless all six are together again.
"We didn't want to start replacing group members, we just wanted people to remember us as we are," Walsh said.
