The band members of Older & Wiser are, clockwise from left: Jim Harvill, Wayne Evans and Mike Gamble.
Photo credit/Jana Divis
WENATCHEE — Every week in the #ncwlivemusic listing, the band Older & Wiser is included for their performances at various venues. In 2021-2022, the band had more than 150 gigs.
For Apple Blossom Festival, Older & Wiser plays their semi-acoustic set of repurposed classic covers at 4 p.m. May 4 at the Gesa Credit Union Entertainment Stage in Memorial Park, 2 S. Chelan Ave., Wenatchee.
“Our mantra is we try to create musical moments for people where the music just hits you,” said Wayne Evans, guitarist and lead vocalist.
Older & Wiser formed in 2018 and does renditions and mashups of songs by artists, such as Elton John, The Wood Brothers, Marvin Gaye, Jackson 5, Peter Gabriel and KISS.
“Me doing the lion’s share of the singing, I’ve got to remember 40 songs a night so it helps when those songs mean something to you and it changes the delivery of the performance. They don’t just hear it, they feel it,” Evans said.
“From our perspective, when we see the faces in the crowd, they are bobbing their heads like it’s familiar, but when we break out into the chorus they smile — ‘Oh, that’s what it is!,’” said Jim Harvill, drummer and vocalist.
Harvill said he began playing percussion in seventh grade with a snare drum.
“I decided I wanted to make more noise,” he said, and bought a bongo, then a regular drum set. With Older & Wiser, he plays a cajón, a Spanish word that means big box.
He also said he plays the darbuka, or goblet drum from the Middle East, and “auxiliary assorted percussion: claves, slap, maracas, my bag of tricks and a couple of tambourines I can strap on to my foot and tap along.”
Mike Gamble is the bass guitarist and third vocalist. Sometimes the bass is the featured instrument that carries the melody for a while, such as in the song, “Man in the Mirror,” by Michael Jackson.
“There’s been a lot of venues so it’s hard to mention some and not others,” Evans said, except Badger Mountain Brewery. The NCW Blues Jam goes on there Mondays from 6-9 p.m., as does a trivia night, hosted by Harvill on Wednesdays from 7-8:30 p.m. The Blues Jam also happens at Columbia Valley Brewing.
Evans and Gamble also play in the band Junk Belly, which was voted Wenatchee World’s Best Band by the reader poll in 2020. Some of their original songs were added to the Older & Wiser set list with different instrumentation.
Evans said Older & Wiser is “very scale-able,” while “the set-up is ideal for wineries” because the band can be “as quiet or as loud as the environment dictates.”
“One thing that is really good about being here and having Leavenworth and Lake Chelan and the different wineries and brewhouses is that the crowd you get is not like you’re in the same old place every week with the same faces,” Evans said.
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