The Fall Festival in Huntington is celebrated every October. Big Scotto, as part of his life-long scam to earn a living by providing venues for local musicians to play, books acts for the stage, sponsored by the Village Connection newspaper, located on the playing field at Heckscher Park. In 2006, Scotto called me to see if one of the bands I play in would be interested in performing there. When he said he wanted to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of The Allman Brothers Band performance at the theatre in Huntington, I suggested we pay homage to that band. As he usually does when he is on the phone with me, he gushed like Liza Minelli at a teacup dog party. We agreed that I would put together a band and play a one hour set. The band would be called Allman Brothers Hour. In 2008, we changed the name of the band to Allman Brothers Hour & a half. For 2009 we became the Allman Brothers Two Hour Band

I love the Allman Brothers, especially the early material, recorded before Duane Allman and Berry Oakley died one year apart in motorcycle accidents. Every year on Labor Day weekend at the After-Bag party I like to host what I call "Allman Brothers Hour." This year we had the typical scene. I announced "Allman Brothers Hour" and requested that musicians who wanted to participate should gather on the stage. We had 8 to 10 guys up there, most didn't know the names of the others, and for an hour, we got our ya-ya's out playing this great music without even bothering to introduce ourselves to each other.

For this gig, the band is staffed by several longtime friends and several guys I met at the After-Bag Party. the first year, a few of the guys actually introduced themselves to their band-mates AFTER THE FIRST GIG! The schedule for this band is 51 weeks off, one week on. We come up with a songlist, woodshed at home, and meet for a single rehearsal at the very cool studio in the basement of Doug's house. The current line-up for the band is:

Electric and Slide Guitars & Vocals: Doug & Chris Lamond
Keyboard: Gary Quenqua
Tractor Bass: Mike Guido
Drums: Scott Kistenberger and Shawn Murray
Percussion: Don Larsen

other members included:
Paul Shields, Kevin Rymer, Bobby Simons, Ben Greenspan, Dave Glatter , Steven Finkelstein & Tom Pecoraro

While all of the music we play is from the early Allman Brothers, the band members have much in common with the modern Allman Brothers Band in that we are a 2 generation band. Much like Butch and Derek Trucks, we also have a family combination in Doug & Chris Lamond.

For each show we select an 2 hours of music from the first 5 Allman Brothers albums, and have much fun playing it. It is so cool looking out from the stage and seeing acres of people, lots of colors and that deep blue sky. I think Scotto sees more colors than the rest of us. At the end of Whippin' Post, Big Scotto usually takes ove the vocals mic, screams along with the guitars and then takes the song home with his signature vocal style. He will have no voice for the remainder of the week.

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Berry Oakley ~ Duane Allman
Duane crashed his bike into a truck on October 29, 1971.
Three blocks away, Berry rode his bike into a school bus on November 11, 1972.
(this is kinda like what Mike Guido and Scott Kistenberger looked like in 1971.
We look different now, Berry and Duane didn't get old and fat)