Chicago rocker Nicholas Tremulis will celebrate his 65th birthday and a 40-year friendship and history with Metro owner Joe Shanahan on Saturday, January 4 with a special live concert, Boneyard Rhapsody #65, benefiting Collaboraction Theatre Company.
Joining Tremulis is the 15-piece band The Prodigals featuring all the original members of Nicholas Tremulis Orchestra, a cast of veteran musicians on guitars, horns, percussion, strings, and powerhouse vocalists - “maybe the best band of Chicago musicians ever assembled.”
Shanahan will be on the DJ decks getting the party started. Special guests include blues star Wayne Baker Brooks, punk architect and producer Ivan Julian, and more. The Emmy Award-winning theater Collaboraction will provide a multimedia production design for the show, led by artistic director Anthony Moseley, and company members Liviu Pasare (video projections) and Jeremy Getz (lights).
Doors open at 7 p.m. Concert at 8 p.m. Boneyard Rhapsody #65 is a seated event. Tickets are $45-$75. Purchase tickets at bit.ly/boneyardrhapsody65.
Metro is located at 3730 N. Clark St. in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. For more, visit metrochicago.com.
Nicholas Tremulis performed live at Collaboraction’s 2024 Utopian Ball. Credit: Daveed Holmes
Collaboraction (collaboraction.org) is a Chicago-based theater and multimedia company that harnesses the power of art through live and virtual performance to ignite social change, foster healing, and amplify underrepresented voices.
Proceeds from Boneyard Rhapsody #65 will benefit Collaboraction’s new youth music program, which will launch when the company opens its new home, a “House of Belonging,” in the Kimball Arts Center in 2025. To learn more, visit collaboraction.org/our-new-house-of-belonging.
Tremulis and Collaboraction founder and artistic director Anthony Moseley have been putting their heads together as well since the 1990s, collaborating on an inspired production of To Kill A Mockingbird, the long-running Sketchbook and numerous events and scores. In September 2024, Moseley and Tremulis, as music director, staged the first-time, three-day Maui Music and Food Experience presented by Hua Momona Foundation for the people of Lahaina grappling to come back from the devastating fires. The bill was fronted by Billy Cox, bass player for Jimmy Hendrix, and one of Maui’s favorite residents, Mick Fleetwood.
Stay tuned for exciting announcements about Tremulis’ involvement with youth music education at Collaboraction, and a new project for the theatrical stage inspired by Boneyard Rhapsody.
“Whenever I dream something up, I call Joe.” - Nicholas Tremulis
Joe Shanahan, Nicholas Tremulis and Norm Winer
Nicholas Tremulis on stage at Metro
Forty years ago, Nicholas Tremulis walked into Metro to play Shanahan a cassette. “He even threw me extra money because the band was big,” said Tremulis. “That started our long relationship together.” Tremulis went on to play the first three legendary New Years Eve shows at Metro. Fast forward 40 years, and he’s closing in on 100 shows on the iconic Metro stage.
“We lived one block apart from each other at the time and would go to each other‘s houses,” Tremulis added. “It wasn’t a strange occurrence for Joe to call me at two in the morning, ask what I was doing and bring over a new 12-inch that he thought was killing it. It’s a constant collaboration. Whenever I dream something up, I call Joe.”
Nicholas Tremulis (facebook.com/nicholas.tremulis) is a classic Chicago product, born to a jazz piano-playing father and a blues-singing mother, and raised in Greektown and Northbrook, dubbed “the music mayor of Chicago” by veteran radio man Norm Winer (former, veteran WXRT program director). His household full of visiting musicians inspired Tremulis to pick up a guitar as a teenager. After an apprenticeship playing clubs, he formed the 13-piece Nicholas Tremulis Band to play his energetic combination of rock, R&B, free jazz and soul, quickly becoming a top band in Chicago, signed by Chris Blackwell to Island Records, along with U2 and Melissa Etheridge. After two records on Island, Tremulis created a smaller band, and kept on his creative jag with more EP and LP releases spanning over 30 years. Tremulis became an in-demand artist worldwide, touring in Europe on his own, backing and recording with Keith Richards, Rick Danko, Bonnie Raitt, Mavis Staples, Ivan Neville; formed side projects like Candy Golde with Wilco’s John Stirratt, Rick Rizzo (Eleventh Dream Day), and Cheap Trick’s Bun E. Carlos and The Faunteroys with troubadour legend Alejandro Escovedo, punk architect Ivan Julian and Linda Pitmon (The Minus 3, Baseball Project) and Chi-Town Social Club with Darryl Jones (Rolling Stones, Miles, Davis, Sting), Vince Wilburn Jr (nephew of Miles Davis) and Shawn Christopher (Sonia Dada, Chaka Khan). Tremulis co-hosted WXRT’s “Eclectic Company” with Jon Langford; hosted a series at the Ed Paschke Center; and is an accomplished producer and composer, teaming regularly with long-time friend and film documentary producer Dan Andries (WTTW), wracking up multiple Emmy awards over the years.