RIDE THE LIGHTNING: A TRIBUTE TO METAL 

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Ride the Lightning Press Release

On Friday, February 5^th 2010 at 7:30pm, the Uptown Music Collective will present, “Ride the Lightning; A Tribute to Metal” at the Community Arts Center in Williamsport, Pa. The concert, a fundraiser for the non-profit school of music, will feature music from historically important and highly influential metal bands from Metals golden era. Some of the Bands that will be featured in this show include Metallica, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath to name a few.

Metal is a genre of rock music that began to form in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by heavy distortion, extended guitar solos, and driving riffs. The sound was first developed by groups like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. In the mid to late 70’s, bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden helped to further evolve the genre by steering away from the blues influence of earlier bands in favor of more complicated western harmonies and scales. Other influences like punk music were absorbed into the music through bands like Motorhead.  

“Ride the Lightning,” the Uptown Music Collective’s tribute to Metal will focus on the bands that introduced and influenced change within the genre Throughout the years, Metal has gone through a myriad of changes and given birth to many sub genres such as thrash metal, black metal, death metal and glam metal. Each of these have their own specific characteristics, while retaining the original Metal sound at their core. Metal has become one of the most popular forms of the rock genre forming cult like followings of fans and influencing new bands and new sub genres to this day.