Friday Will Be Hubie's 200th Concert with APX
Sat., Aug. 12. 2006 11:00am EDT
This coming Friday, August 18, in Pecatonica IL, will be our keyboardist Bill "Wild Thing" Hubauer's 200th concert with ApologetiX, Lord willing. The grand event would have taken place this past Sunday in Latrobe if our concert the previous Sunday hadn't been postponed.
We first got to know Bill while doing a series of concerts in 1997-1998 with his band, Ten point Ten, a critically acclaimed Christian progressive-rock band (although ordinary slobs like us like 'em, too!) He played the majority of the keyboards on our "Jesus Christ Morningstar" CD in 1998, and all keyboards on every CD since.
Also known as "Hubie," Bill started playing concerts with us semi-regularly (he plays most but not all of our concerts) on February 27, 2004 at Faith Community Church in Janesville WI, but he also played seven shows with us in 1999, 2000, and 2002.
For the record, those first seven shows were:
7/24/99 - Songfest '99, Bruno Memorial Field, Herminie, PA
6/15/00 - Harvest Community Church of God, Markleysburg, PA
7/01/00 - Creation '00, Mount Union, PA
3/10/02 - Adios at the Meadows, Meadowlands, PA
3/21/02 - Westminster Presbyterian, Pittsburgh, PA
4/19/02 - Center High School, Monaca, PA
5/11/02 - Church of the Nazarene, Corapolis, PA
At our live shows, Bill not only plays keyboards -- he also adds rhythm guitar, backing vocals, electric fiddle, and tambourine. There are some other instruments he plays that we've yet to unveil on stage, but we hope to do so in the future.
Bill attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. Other notable alumni of the school include: Vinnie Colaiuta; Bruce Cockborn; Paula Cole; Elliot Easton of the Cars; Melissa Etheridge; Donald Fagen of Steely Dan; Jan Hammer (of "Miami Vice" fame); Bruce Hornsby; Lisa Loeb; Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks; Aimee Mann of 'til Tuesday; Branford Marsalis; Ed Roland of Collective Soul; Matt Rubano of Taking Back Sunday; Kathy Troccoli; Steve Vai; and Brad Whitford of Aerosmith; three members of Dream Theater; and four members of the Click Five.
Bill's musical influences/tastes include (but are by no means limited to) Kansas, Styx, Yes, Genesis, Rush, Supertramp, Spock's Beard, The Dixie Dregs, Chick Correa, Dragon Force, A.D., Steven Curtis Chapman, Rich Mullins, DC Talk, PFR, Limozine and, to a lesser extent, Z'nuff.
Born into a U.S. Navy family in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Bill grew up near Clarion, PA, and also worked for a year in New York City, although he now lives in the Pittsburgh area. He and his wife, Bonnie, have four children, Aaron, Nathan, Sarah and Jonah. Bill attends Dormont Presbyterian Church (in the same section of Pittsburgh where ApologetiX first got its name).
"The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) was a real turning point for me as far as my reliance on God," he says. In addition to the Gospels, Bill names James and Proverbs as two of his favorite books of the Bible.
Bill is a self-confessed "computer nerd" and the only member of ApologetiX to hold another full-time job -- as a computer programmer. That's the main reason he's not at every single one of our concerts, just most of 'em. But we'll take him any time we can get him, and we praise God for the 200 times He's already graced us with Bill's presence.
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