Vancouver’s New Year’s Eve is Moe fun

Many guys named Moe are out there.

One group of musical Moes is based in Chicago. More Moes have cropped up in places as far-flung as Ontario, Canada, and Kent, England. No matter how many Moes there may be, there are always Five Guys Named Moe. No less, no moe.

Here in Vancouver, our local Five Guys Named Moe are 13 men and women who specialize in faithful covers of dance music from nearly every era. What started out as a five-piece rock group in 1984 has grown into a big Vegas-style show band boasting four singers and five horns on all your favorite hits, from the 1960s through right now.

It’s thanks to Joe Jackson’s 1981 remake of a stomping 1943 hit by singer and saxophonist Louis Jordan that bands the world over started taking up the name.

“Who’s the greatest band around?

Makes the cats jump up and down?

Who’s the talk of Rhythm Town?

Five guys named Moe!

When they start to beat it out

Everybody jump and shout.

Tell me who do the critics rave about?

Five guys named Moe!”

Getting the band together

This newspaper had a hand assembling our local Moes, according to bandleader John Granger.

In 1986, recent college graduate Granger came home to Vancouver wanting to get back to the saxophone he’d played in the University of Washington marching band. He spotted a classified ad — remember those? — seeking a sax player for a dance band. The band was already Five Guys Named Moe, and it really was just five guys — but now they were adding brass.

Thirty years later, Granger is leader of the band. The personnel have changed and expanded, but not the people-pleasing approach.

Our 13 Moes include six Vancouver residents with some impressive musical and community credentials. In addition to Granger there’s saxophonist Mark Davey, band director at Shahala Middle School, and trombonist Mark Neshyba, band director at Wy’east Middle School. Neshyba is retiring from Wy’east next year, and one of his earliest music students in 1978 was Brian Pelky, now a Moes guitarist and incoming president of the Clark County Association of Realtors. Lead singer Rebecca Brown is marketing director at Clearwater Assisted Living.

“Our current core unit has been together about 10 years but the formula remains the same as it always has been: bring the party to the people,” Granger said.

Five Guys Named Moe will rock the new WareHouse ’23 waterfront restaurant — which used to be the Red Lion — on Saturday night. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; the band plays from 8:30 p.m. until half-past midnight; and the $99.99-plus-tax price of admission also gets you a souvenir glass on arrival, appetizer and dessert buffets, and complimentary champagne toast at midnight.

If you’re not eager to drive home after all that jumping and shouting, mention the event when you call nearby Homewood Suites and you’ll get the same $99.99 rate on a night’s stay.

Minidoka, Masquerade

Just a few steps away, the Hilton Vancouver Washington is offering a pair of New Year’s Eve parties, early and late. The early one features the classic jazzy sound that those Five Guys would have supplied in the 1940s — and it starts at a sensible time for folks who were there.

The Minidoka Swing Band pays tribute to the big bands that Japanese-American citizens formed to bolster their spirits while imprisoned during World War II. One such prison camp was at Minidoka, Idaho, and this band of descendants and others formed in Portland in 2007 to keep the memory — and the music — alive.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for “Vancouver’s Big Band New Year’s Eve at the Hilton,” dinner is at 7 p.m. and the New Year’s Eve countdown is at 9 p.m. Wine and Champagne toast included.

The big band bash ends promptly at 9:30 p.m., but if you’re still revved and ready for more, your ticket also gets you into the finale of the neighboring “Masquerade in the Round,” featuring very different sounds — the slick 1980s, as covered by the Nu Wavers with Blake Sakamoto.

Earlier in the evening, the Masquerade features the “blue-eyed soul” of Steve Hale and the Super Soul Heroes, the bluesy Andy Stokes Band and even aerial acrobatics from Aerial Muse Collective.

Different-priced packages are available, including everything from reserved seating, gourmet dinner and Champagne toast, to appetizers with or without seating, to late (10 p.m.) entry for dancing only.

Like Homewood Suites, the Hilton will have special discount rates on rooms — while they last — for New Year’s Eve revelers.