Kevin Bacon
The Bacon Brothers @ A Taste of Syracuse - June 4, 2005

Tom Becomes a "First Degree"

Kevin Bacon is a Hollywood institution. Everybody has seen his movies. He is in sooooo many movies there is even a game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon where you have to link him to another celebrity in less than, you guessed it, six moves... Over the years, he has appeared in such diverse films as Animal House, Friday the 13th, Diner, The Big Picture, JFK, A Few Good Men, Wild Things, Stir of Echoes, My Dog Skip, The Hollow Man, Novocaine, and of course what is possibly his most famous film: Footloose.
As if all that wasn't enough, Kevin even plays in a rock band called The Bacon Brothers with his brother Michael. I know what you're thinking: "Oh great, another actor that thinks he can be a musician." But unlike many of his peers who try to cross over into music, Kevin and his brother Michael actually pull it off!
Michael Bacon is actually a very accomplished song writer. Jerry Lee Lewis, Carlene Carter, Perry Como, Peter Yarrow and Claude Francois are just a few of the artists that have recorded songs written by Michael.
More than ten thousand people turned out to see The Bacon Brothers perform in Clinton Square for the annual Taste of Syracuse festival and they were not disappointed.

The Bacon Brothers and their band ripped through a set of straight-up, no-frills, Rock & Roll. They played many originals as well as a few famous covers. The crowd ate it up like the tasty culinary delights offered at the Taste of Syracuse. Cameras flashed and video taped rolled as the band went through their set.
After leaving the stage the brother returned momentarily for a brief encore and ended the show with their version of the theme song to the movie Footloose. And in case you didn't know, (and if you don't know, you must live in a cave...) Footloose is the film that first propelled Kevin to stardom.
Movie Review: "In addition to boasting one of the most popular movie soundtracks of all time, Footloose made a star of Kevin Bacon, the rebel with a cause at the center of this infectious celebration of dance that became a cultural phenomenon. Footloose is also one of the earliest movies to be clearly inspired by MTV, with its episodic narrative structure and songs staged as miniature emotional operas. When Bacon's bad boy pours out his angst through dance and aggressive gymnastics in a closed factory, swigging from a beer while blowing out plumes of smoke, all to the tune of "Holding out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler, his mythic posturing is made in music video heaven. But there's a lot more than teenage disobedience in Footloose. It's also a sensitive portrait of Midwestern values, which don't clash nearly so much as Bacon's dance proponents or John Lithgow's worried churchgoers think they do. Lithgow's performance is especially complicated and heartfelt; the reluctant villain because he stands between the teens and their desire to cut loose, he really only wants to save them from themselves, having personally experienced tragedy caused by recklessness.

Dianne Wiest balances her husband's conscience with her daughter's desire to embrace youth, making for another stand-out performance. Genuinely rousing, if perhaps willfully naïve and formulaic, Footloose is most winning during its dance sequences, the specialty of director/choreographer Herbert Ross. The movie held such lingering appeal in the popular consciousness that it inspired a successful Broadway musical — almost 15 years after its theatrical release." — Derek Armstrong @ allmovies.com
After the show my friend Woody and I waited around to get an meet and greet with Kevin and Michael. We had to wait nearly 40 minutes after the completion of their set before the brothers greeted the public.
Michael came out first and I got my photo with him and thanked him for a great show. Soon his movie star brother came out and I asked to pose for a snapshot. Woody took my camera to take the snapshot, and at the last second Woody's drunken friend Christine jumped into the picture. At first I was really angry, because I felt she was ruining my photo, but then I remembered that I am a whiz at Photoshop! Ha ha ha... I took her ass right out. Yay me! Kevin was very friendly, I shook his hand, thanked him for the entire body of his work and headed back to work.
So, from now on when you are playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon feel free to use me to complete your mission!

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