Thursday, March 5, 2009

Day Sixty-Four: The Restoration

If these walls could talk....

...they might tell stories of the dozens of KU students who took their dwelling here, with the St. Lawrence Center as their landlord.

...they might speak of the countless games of ultimate frisbee they have witnessed on the front and side lawns.

...they might recount early morning group runs followed by espresso shots, prayer services in the mornings and evenings, barbecues in the summer, hot chocolate in the winter...

...and they might even remember a little music group that formed in its deepest recesses, down in the depths of the Engel House where nobody had ventured for quite a few years. This little band of musicians brought new life to a once dark and dingy basement, and thus they became known as the Engel House Restoration.

I never lived in the Engel House, which sits augustly on a large lawn across from the St. Lawrence Catholic Center on the edge of the KU campus. But I do have a lot of ties to the house and many of the people who have lived in it.

Beyond the friendships and fun times, I will most remember this place for EHR, the band that (literally) rose from the depths of the Engel House and gained enough support to play venues in Lawrence, Kansas City, and surrounding areas.

Due to reasons much tamer than anything you'll see on VH1's Behind the Music, the band eventually broke up and the members went their separate ways. While no known audio or video recordings of the band exist today*, EHR will forever be remembered by its adoring fans for original songs such as "Waiting For Me" and "Lucky Star," as well as its signature cover song, "Shooting Star."

And so I leave you with one last memory of the Engel House Restoration, a set list from one of our many** concerts in Lawrence.



*none that you get to see, that is. There is video out there somewhere on the Internet - good luck finding it!

**not that many.

No comments:

Post a Comment