KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2010 / NEWS
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'Wizard rock' comes to town
Ryan Waggoner/KANSAN
Paul DeGeorge performs at the Lawrence Public Library last week. Paul and his brother Joe tour as Harry and the Potters, playing music exclusively based on the best selling Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling.
KANSAN.com
To see a video from the performance by Harry and the Potters, check out Kansan.com.
Duo sings about Harry Potter and life at Hogwarts
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
Joe and Paul DeGeorge are scarffree, brown-haired and brown-eyed. But for the brothers and their fans, they're close enough to the mythic "boy who lived."
J. K. Rowling described Harry Potter as a wiry boy with jet-black hair, green eyes and a trademark lightning bolt scar.
The Norwood, Mass., brothers tour as Harry and the Potters, a two-man "wizard rock" band that exclusively plays songs about Rowling's instant-classic series.
On July 7, they took their act to the Lawrence Public Library and performed for a fanatic crowd of about 200 that ranged from kids and their parents to University students.
"They're the pioneers of wizard rock," Garrett Childers, a senior from Lawrence, said. "They're like the Led
On stage, Joe, 23, inhabits the persona of Harry Potter, year four, Paul, 31, is Harry in his seventh year.
Zeppelin of wizard rock. If you're a Harry Potter fan, you have to see them at some point in your life"
"We thought it was kind of a cool, goofy idea," Joe said. "It's like one of those band ideas people have but never do anything about."
The brothers DeGeorge did something about the idea, though, and now they've been playing and touring for eight years, debating between the releases of the fourth and fifth books. After releasing their first album, "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock!", Paul said word spread across the Internet and they started getting requests from fans to come play their hometowns.
"People started saying, 'Oh, man it would be awesome if you could play in, like, Dallas,' Paul said. "I never thought we could play in Dallas. So we just packed up the minivan and hit
the road."
Wednesday's performance was the brothers' fifth in Lawrence. They've played at four different local venues — The Dusty Bookshelf, the library, the Jackpot Saloon and the Replay Lounge — since 2004.
Paul lived in Lawrence for nine months and his girlfriend recently graduated with a master's degree from the University.
"We've got some hardcore Lawrence connections," he said. "We just wanted to spend her birthday and Joe's birthday around here."
Some fans had less connection to Lawrence than the brothers did., traveling in some instances from as far as Springfield, Mo., and Omaha.
"For a lot of those kids who are here, it's probably their first concert ever," Paul said. "We want to get them psyched up for that. We want it to be a blast. We want to be the best first concert experience ever."