The UpBeat Band took Stage 151 by storm on August 12, 2011. Many long time fans came to this exhilarating concert, and UpBeat made a great many new friends too! Stage 151 is Chicago land’s premier live concert stage at Harrah’s in Joliet, and UpBeat is a great fit for this venue, performing a versatile playlist for a variety of guests, and musically connecting with everyone. UpBeat delivered a high energy dance party set, including requested ”I Gotta Feeling,” “Don’t Stop Believing,” “Living On A Prayer,” “Proud Mary” contemporary fav’s including “California Gurls,” Lady Gaga, also Motown R&B classics, 80’s retro, and 70’s funk.
This special concert featured UpBeat’s “vocal funkmaster” Curtis Bryant, soul-singing-superstar Victor Bryant, vocal virtuoso Karla Beard-Leray, insanely-multi-talented (3 musicains in one!) pianist/vocal Reid Spears, UpBeat’s secret weapon guitar virtuoso Casey Ostrowski (aka “KC”), funky bass by Tyrone Allen, soulstress Precious Taylor, and Mike Cascio on Drums.
“Oh What A Night” was the bridal party dance, and indeed it was a wonderful night. This was our typical non-stop dance party, and we were happy to play a few last minute requests for the bride’s family visiting from out of town. The UpBeat Band enjoyed learning a few new tunes for this event, especially “Song For You” (Michael Buble), which was their first dance - very romantic. Audrey was nice enough to write a review for our Chicago wedding band on The Best Chicago Weddings:
” …Michael really took the time to make our wedding truly special and unique! They had everyone on the dance floor the entire evening. Great variety of music for all guests. I highly recommend The Upbeat Band. It was definitely one of the best decisions we made in planning our wedding…”
You can read the entire review for this event and others at:
The UpBeat Band is proud to be featured on one of the top web standards for vendors in the wedding industry, Martha Stewart Weddings. We are pleased to post that our band received a five star review just after our web launch from one of our previous wedding clients:
“Amazing band, tons of fun. They really made our day special!!! A year later, we still get comments on how awesome the band was. Choosing the Upbeat Band was definitely one of the best decisions we made in planning our wedding.”
With my years of experience and insight, I’ve decided to write an article outlining a method for choosing and refining custom music for the components of your wedding reception party. Music is a major part of your reception, and plays a key role in creating the atmosphere of your wedding…
Your wedding should be a joyous occasion–and planning your wedding should not be stressful. We help organize the process and make it easy. An accurate and organized time line is important. We provide a detailed check list for our clients, where every possible traditional or contemporary option for music and hosting choices is covered, including: wedding party introductions–music and hosting production, first dances, traditions (we have tasteful, fun music for these), toasts, specialty dances, when to cut the cake, an explanation of hosting style and choice of wording for bridal introduction, and much more…
Our 5-7 piece group, The UpBeat Band, is always committed to customized wedding planning, and last weekend at the Chicago Cultural Center we performed a very specific play list created by the bride and groom which focused on the swing classics, including standards by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennet, and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as R&B/Soul classics, especially Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. This was a very elegant party, and the finale was “Dance To the Music” by Sly and the Family Stone.
Cheers!
–Michael Cascio
You guys absolutly ROCKED!Everyone who I have talked the first thing out of their mouths was how good the band was!!
Please feel free to use us as references on your website or how ever you see fit. Thanks again so much!! Please dont forget to let us know when and where you guys are playing.”
Dan and Katherine Zigmunt
bride and groom Michael Cascio Orchestra at Belvedere Chateau, Palos Hills, IL
is the band leader and music director of UpBeat. As a leader, Michael has assembled a dream team of Chicago's finest and most versatile professionals. Michael has led and performed many hundreds of dates in the past decade, and as Maria Barberi, Event Manager for RE/MAX wrote:
"You are my guarantee for fabulous entertainment! Everyone we spoke to LOVES your band and had a great time dancing. It is always a pleasure to work with you!"
