ROCHESTER, N.Y. – In a dim bar on a cramped stage, the Invictas are getting ready to rock.
Twanging and tuning are a band of rockers in khakis with white hair, day jobs, grown children and – improbably – plans to keep playing power chords when their cohorts are fine-tuning golf swings.
“I’m pumped!” drummer Dave Hickey jokes as he walks in. “I took my Geritol, I took my vitamins!”
The Invictas made their bones in this city by packing houses and ripping through “Louie, Louie,” “Satisfaction” and their own hit, “The Hump.”
That was in the ’60s, though. Reunited band members are now entering their 60s.
This is geezer rock at the other end of the spectrum from Mick Jagger prancing around stadiums for fat paychecks. This is what happens when a garage band refuses to die.
The money is lousy, the hours crummy, the age questions sometimes sarcastic. Is there a statute of limitations for singing “Sweet Little Sixteen”?
The Invictas are undaunted. Practice guitar notes ping as a few people look up from their beers.
The evening before the Invictas’ show, Herb Gross, 62, drives to practice in the band’s 1984 hearse. It has a rumbling exhaust and “The Invictas” painted on the side, just like the hearse from the band’s heyday. Passing drivers stare. This is OK by Gross, who aside from being the Invictas’ singer is a professional ad man who works tirelessly on behalf of his band.
Herb put together the band’s summer tour of local bars and festivals from his home in Charlotte, N.C. The “Skip ‘n Go Naked Tour” (named after a drink, not the activity) starts at the California Brew Haus, a big, shopworn bar next to Kodak’s massive industrial complex in Rochester.
Also practicing is bassist Jim Kohler, 63, the oldest Invicta, who also looks the most rockerlike with shoulder-length gray, curly hair. He calls himself the Keith Richards to Gross’ Jagger, and like the famous duo they are both wiry men with big personalities. Dave Hickey, a 59-year-old grandfather, plays drums. His brother Bruce Hickey, 57, plays guitar.
They mostly look like suburban dads. Bruce Hickey even drives to the gig in a minivan and borrows his son’s amp.
They stumble on the bridge of “Midnight Rambler” during practice and have trouble finding a groove. Still, they seem confident it will all gel the next night. After all, it always used to.
The band came together at Rochester Institute of Technology in 1961. The eventual four-man lineup consisted of Gross, Kohler, Dave Hickey and Mark Blumenfeld, who now lives in California and is not involved in the reunion.
The Invictas caught fire playing at a local joint called Tiny’s Bengel Inn. Though homegrown, they looked like a British Invasion band with their long hair and riding boots. Some bands played better, none played harder.
Their breakout single, “The Hump,” was recorded in 1963 in a studio packed with pals, cases of beer and a keyboardist they bailed out of jail. The song is not dirty, technically, but urges listeners to “Do the Hump,” a dance that goes like this: Hands behind head. Pelvis in. Pelvis out. Repeat.
The tiny-label single got some play on the East Coast and was a hit in western New York, leading to the still-repeated claim by the Invictas that they outsold the Beatles locally.
“Girls were chasing us. We could play pretty much wherever we wanted to play,” Gross said.
An album, “The Invictas a Go-Go,” was hastily recorded during a weekend in New York City in 1965. The band hated it. Worse, the grind of touring the Northeast started to wear on them.
With Kohler facing the draft after graduation, he joined the Air Force. Dave Hickey enlisted, too. Gross reconstituted the band with Bruce Hickey and other replacement players, but the Invictas fizzled away by the early ’70s.
Life went on. Gross started his own advertising firm. Bruce Hickey, Kohler and Dave Hickey all got into the printing business.
Then two years ago, Dave Hickey and Gross were watching a blues band perform in Rochester when the singer invited them on stage. Gross came up and sang. To his surprise, the crowd yelled for “The Hump.”
Gross had a “Blues Brothers” moment. He told Hickey: “We have to put the band back together!”
Being in a garage band is complicated once you’re AARP age. It takes longer to recharge batteries after late-night shows. While the Hickey brothers live in the area, Gross flies up from Charlotte and Kohler drives a few hours from Erie, Pa. Gross sunk thousands into the hearse. And there’s the time away from their families. Kohler’s wife asks him at Applebee’s before the gig: “This is temporary, right?”
To a man, they say the reason they do it is simple. It’s just so much fun.
At the bar for the Invictas’ tour kickoff, the audience is a bit sparser than the band is used to – some middle-aged couples plus Bruce Hickey’s kids and a pack of their friends, one of whom keeps yelling, “Bass solo!”
Still, Gross looks up from his guitar and promises, “We’re going to play our hearts out for you!”
Gross blows harmonica and wades into the audience. He leans back and chops at his guitar. Kohler is loose-limbed on the bass while Bruce Hickey stands steady. By the time Gross asks, “You guys ready to Hump?” the small crowd is primed. Young and old put their hands behind their heads and shimmy as the band sings.
Soon enough, it will be back to the grind. Tonight, the Invictas are dealing with age the way so many baby boomers do: by ignoring it.
“When I was a kid, your parents were old. But this is the baby boomers,” Kohler explained. “Why can’t I get up there? I’m 63 years old. I’m having the time of my life! I probably won’t break even. I don’t care.”
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