Honey & Hotrods Light Up Mill Town Players Stage after Dark Year

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Honey and the Hot Rods strutted onto the Mill Town Players stage Friday night, the first performance at the venue after more than a year of being shut down for the pandemic, with full-tilt energy and an engaging stage presence that reminded theater goers what we have missed.

The road house four-piece retro-rock band did not disappoint the sold-out house.Honey and the Hotrods light up the stage at the Mill Town Player theater Friday night. Photo: Anderson Observer

Katie Rockwell, who wowed audiences on this same stage in 2016 with her “Always…Patsy Cline” tribute show, blazed through a series of classics from the 1950s on Friday, covering a set that stretched beyond the advertised rockabilly show.

From the kickoff “Backstreet Boogie,” Katie, along with husband Ken whose guitar work sizzled with licks that at times evoked a Chuck Berry/Carl Perkins after a six-pack of Red Bulls, offered a show that connected with the full auditorium, who hooted and applauded when asked if they had missed live music. Ken’s hot guitar hooks were the perfect match to Katie’s voice, which effortlessly slide from ballads to rock as she kicks in a quick growl into her vocal licks. 

Joined by a solid rhythm sections with Pete Cash on bass and Fred Wooten on drums, Honey and the Hot Rods blew through covers of seminal songs of the era, including echoes of the Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and, of course Patsy Cline. 

From “All I Have to Do is Dream” and “Crying,” to “Folsom Prison Blues” and the playful “Shake Your Money Maker,” to mention a few, Friday night’s concert was just plain fun.

But the stellar moment of the concert was Katie’s cover of “When Will I Be Loved,” which soared into an orbit of its own. Originally another Everly Brothers hit in the 1950s, Katie followed the Linda Ronstadt arrangement, which energy and emotion unmatched in Friday night’s all-around strong set. 

Her voice on the song were perfect, and if Mill Town Players CEO Will Ragland is half the promoter I know he is, the creation of a show of Katie covering the entire Ronstadt “Heart Like a Wheel” album should already be in the works.

Ragland, who also serves as mayor of Pelzer, was almost floating as he introduced the return to live shows at the auditorium, thanking the loyal patrons and the South Carolina Cares Act for saving the theater from oblivion during the pandemic. 

Honey and the Hotrods was a one-off performance, the perfect kick off for the theater's reopening. The Mill Town Players season continues July 23 with “Steel Magnolias.” For more information on the new season visit here.