The WRRV Bowl-a-Thon with Taking Back Sunday

The other day was the 3rd Annual WRRV Bowl-a-Thon with Taking Back Sunday, an event that was inaugurated to help raise money for the Jen Coudrey Memorial Scholarship Fund, which took place at the Mardi-Bob Hoe Bowl Lanes in the city of Poughkeepsie. The scholarship, which is named after a much loved former morning DJ who sadly lost her battle with a rare form cancer, is awarded to high school senior girls who plan on attending college for Physical Therapy (Coudrey was a physical therapist before she became the co-host to Music All Morning with Boris on WRRV).

This year the musical guest was Taking Back Sunday, which I have to admit I wasn't all to familiar with until I heard them play in the middle of two bowling lanes. It was an odd place for a mini concert, but it was a nice cozy and intimate atmosphere with the two main members of the band, lead singer Adam Lazzaro and lead guitarist John Nolan performing three of the bands songs, the last of which was their new hit, Faith. In between songs they talked and joked around with the listeners and reiterated announcements from the concession stands, reminding folks that their food was ready. Lazzaro and Nolan were entertaining and patient as we went through photo ops with every bowling team and the radio staff, and signed countless autographs. However, their time at the bowling alley was cut short as they had to head over to The Chance Theater for their performance later that evening.

After the band left the bowling continued with interesting and fun little competitions for prizes such as bowl through your legs backwards and try to get a strike by bowling by laying on your stomach. Not only did it provide for some fun photos, but the listeners were having a good time performing such acts and winning some pretty spiffy prizes for them.


At the end of the night tired listeners slowly started filtering out of the bowling alley, some with signed photos of Taking Back Sunday and others with commandeered WRRV banner tape in hand. It was fun event and only halfway over for me and another road crew member, Kaitlyn as we had to rush over to The Chance to do another WRRV set up for the band's performance there, but that's a story for another post . . .