Local rock band celebrates 20 years of music with anniversary show

Anything worth having will come with its respective challenges, and a local rock band has embraced those hardships and will soon be performing a show to commemorate two decades as a group.

The Warner Robins band is named “2 Finger Jester,” and their lead singer — Mat Weber — spoke of the band’s history by describing their ups and downs, along with what made them stay together long enough for the chance to celebrate this milestone.

He said the original idea of starting a group came up in 1999 between him and fellow founding member, Mike Miller, who later passed away in 2007.

Since Macon and the surrounding areas had strong roots in southern rock, Weber said he was looking to play something different, and he always enjoyed the hits of the 80s and the “hair metal” genre.

He described the “huge undertaking” of acquiring competent musicians to play in that locally less popular style as a developmental challenge for the group.

They had to add and remove people from the group as life challenges arose, including deaths and circumstances involving members’ health and their families, Weber told us.

He said maintaining relationships within the band and with ex-members has always been a priority to them.

“A band is a very fragile entity,” Weber shared. “You’re dealing with four or five egos. If we didn’t have an ego, we’d just stay in our bedroom and play guitar.”

The present lineup includes Mat Weber (lead vocals), Vincent Youngbauer (lead guitar, vocals), Milt Armstrong (bass guitar, vocals) and Joe Garrett (drums).

Weber explained Youngbauer was recruited through a Craiglist ad and grew up just 45 minutes from him in Pennsylvania. Weber said he had known Garrett for a long time, and they always meant to work on a project together. Armstrong was a “building block” for the group and joined around four or five years into the group’s existence.

From the time of the initial idea, around two years went by before the group’s first live show where they performed in a tiny pub for a pay of around $50 and some draft beer, he said.

“It was really tough trying to get our foot in the door anywhere,” Weber said.

He added that one venue’s owner loved their original tunes, but the “happy hour” crowd weren’t huge fans. So to keep from driving them away, the band had to adjust and integrate popular songs from groups such as Lynyrd Skynyrd to maintain the crowd’s attention through the set.

After two more years of playing anywhere they could, they performed a show that had a writer from The 11th Hour — a Macon-based entertainment publication — watching from the crowd, Weber said.

Around 10 days later, a write-up was published reviewing 2 Finger Jester, he said. Weber added that from that point, the group gained credibility and demand for their music went up.

“We were just playing crazy amounts of shows — 100 shows a year — which is an undertaking being you have a band of four guys who all have day jobs,” Weber said.

He said after 10 years of that demand, the group backed off some of their bookings, now performing one show a month to maintain the excitement within their group.

“We play less, we get more attention,” Weber said.

The band has also moved to performing strictly covers, even though they have an EP of original music recorded and published through various streaming services such as iTunes and Amazon Music, Weber said. According to him, their largest amount of downloads comes from Europe, with the highest concentration coming from Germany.

Weber said people should come see him and fellow bandmates perform because they’ll play familiar tunes from groups such as AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses, while making the music and entertainment of the spectators their priority.

“We can bring a big stadium-type feel to a small venue,” Weber said.

He added they furnish their own staging, drum risers, lighting, lasers and anything to make the show more entertaining for the people watching.

He added that people should come see the show because he and his bandmates don’t see people watching as just “fans.”

“We’ve never really considered people that come see us like fans,” Weber said. “They’ve always been friends of ours. Face it — we’re not the Allman Brothers. We don’t have thousands of fans, you know? But we have a lot of friends.”

2 Finger Jester will be featuring their 20-year anniversary performance at The Hummingbird Stage and Taproom in Macon on Saturday, Nov. 20, from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. Admission is $5, and Apparel Authority — a Macon screenprinter — will be giving out free T-shirts.

Local country-acoustic artist, Daniel Murdock, will be opening for the event beginning at 9 p.m.

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