It’s rare for music genres as different as emo and orchestra to be combined. It’s even rarer for music venues as different as Pappy and Harriet’s and the McCallum Theatre to team up—but both of these rarities will occur when the aptly titled Emo Orchestra event takes place on Thursday, Nov. 9, at the McCallum.
Hawthorne Heights, an emo-music staple, will be joined by a live orchestra to perform Hawthorne Heights songs alongside other emo classics. I recently talked to the co-owners of Pappy & Harriet’s, JB Moresco and Lisa Elin, via Zoom about the collaboration.
“The opportunity for Emo Orchestra really drove the newfound relationship with Mitch Gershenfeld (president, CEO and artistic director) and the McCallum,” Moresco said. “We had done a successful show with the agent of Hawthorne Heights. … It was a Tuesday in October, and Pappy’s is one of those places where a lot of bands can sell out a Friday or Saturday night in the 350-cap indoor room, but to sell out a Tuesday is a pretty big deal.”
Moresco, Elin and their team had heard great things about the members of Hawthorne Heights from someone on staff, and those great things all turned out to be true, they said.
“Our in-house electrician is actually really good buddies with a big music guy who’s based in Ohio, and JT Woodruff from Hawthorne Heights is sort of (that guy’s) right-hand man,” Moresco said. “He’s telling me, prior to this, ‘My buddy’s always saying how great a guy JT is,’ and he was completely right about all those things. He’s a super, super amazing guy, and you don’t really get that all the time in the music space these days. Any opportunity to work with them going forward, we were super receptive to, and (the band’s agent, Ben Mench-Thurlow) came with this sort of brief, saying, ‘Hey, we’re putting something interesting together, and we’re looking at 1,000- to 2,000-cap theaters.’”
Those who know Pappy & Harriet’s understand it is not a traditional venue; it’s a small, intimate indoor club, with a larger stage outside complemented by desert dirt and the beautiful night sky. Still, Pappy’s received the request for the theater show.
“I was like, ‘Oh man, this is really, really cool, but we wouldn’t be able to do seating,’” Moresco said. “I had been kind of following this theater in Palm Desert, so I said, ‘What if I reached out to this theater? Take a look at this theater; do you think this would work there?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, that’s exactly the kind of space that we’re doing most of these shows in.’ I reached out to the theater and got put in contact with Mitch. We hit off on a relationship and got through the deal points of how to make it work, because this is something they had never really done, where they’re working with another promoter. A lot of times, they’ll rent out the theater for an event, but this is actually a true partnership, where we both said, ‘Hey, we both believe in this concept and this band.’”
While it’s unusual for emo and orchestras to join forces, it’s not unheard of. My Chemical Romance and their hit album The Black Parade come to mind—and some of those songs will surely will find their way into the Emo Orchestra show. Elin said the goal is to make attendees happy.
“It’s so obvious to some degree,” Elin said. “In a time now where we’ve come out of the pandemic, a lot of people haven’t socialized, and I think a lot of people have kind of forgotten what it’s like to be in a collective space. There’s a lot of worry and fear in the world around everything that we deal with every day, from climate change to politics—and this is a way that people really kind of get their ya’s out. They come and they scream, and they cry, and they lose their minds. They sing every word, and it really is a way where we’ve seen people come back together and emotionally enjoy each other. It’s emotional enjoyment on a hyper level—because that’s what emo is about.”
Presenting emo rock in a theater that hosts grand stage shows may seem like an odd fit, but Elin said there are a lot of similarities between the two worlds.
“I grew up going to Broadway shows, and doing something like this in a theater setting is very exciting,” Elin said. “I’ve seen every Broadway show from Snow White to The Who’s Tommy, and when you see a rock opera on Broadway in a theater like that, you see how much it actually works together. There’s also a lot of showmanship involved with how JT runs the shows. He’s very much like a storyteller, and he takes you on a trip. For us, the challenge is now just finding that audience (at the McCallum), because I don’t think people are looking at it the same way. People think that’s where they would go and see something that generally speaks to an older demographic, and we’re trying to draw in a younger demographic and be like, ‘You can go to your emo night, but put on your best goth clothing. You have a velvet seat for this one; you don’t have to stand on floorboards and dirt. You can actually go and get dressed up and make it a real experience.’”
Moresco said it was important to Woodruff and Mench-Thurlow for a pair of tickets to be available for less than $100, and the tickets for the McCallum show start at $48 each, or $96 for a pair.
“The irony there is that those tickets have actually been the softest (selling) of all the tickets,” Moresco said. “The most expensive tickets closest to the front are the ones that are all gone. It’s very interesting how people are spending money on music right now. It seems like if you’re into the show, you’re going to get the best ticket, and the price is really not an objective.”
Moresco and Elin hope this collaboration will lead to more partnerships among desert venues and beyond.
“This is a very unique kind of show, and if we can have some success here on this one, I think there’ll be future opportunities,” Moresco said. “In our perfect world, it would be a scenario where it’s a band that works both at a jewel box-type seated theater, and in a standing-room-only outdoor 1,000-cap space, and it could be a Friday night down there, and a Saturday night at Pappy’s, or vice versa. … This is our first time really co-promoting something outside of the actual venue, but we certainly would be open to any opportunity, because for us, it’s all about putting good music where it’s accessible to people—and people can’t always get up to Pappy and Harriet’s.”
Emo Orchestra featuring Hawthorne Heights will take place at 7 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 9, at the McCallum Theatre, 73000 Fred Waring Drive, in Palm Desert. Tickets are $48 to $78. For tickets or more information, call 760-340-2787, or visit www.mccallumtheatre.com.
