Gabbie Ray’s Homecoming and Pine Lakes Tavern’s Flappers

G-Ray’s Final Countdown

I caught up by phone with former local tween and teen performer Gabbie Rae just before sound check calling from a venue in the Badlands of South Dakaota. She embarked January 18 on a 15-date tour with Europe, the band currently featured in Geico TV ads singing their 1986 hit “The Final Countdown.” Seventeen-year-old Gabbie Rae will open the show with her five-piece metal band doing an hour of originals and few carefully chosen covers.

The hardest working teen-aged girl in showbiz, Gabbie Rae will perform with her band 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5 at the Hard Rock Café in Myrtle Beach. It was supposed to be a day off, but not for G-Ray and her posse.

Looking back to the early years of the Millennium, precocious nine-year old Gabbie Ray could be seen all along the Grand Strand performing wherever a band would let her sit in, and wherever her parents were willing to drive. That meant shows at the Dead Dog Saloon in Murrells Inlet, corporate appearances in tribute to Hannah Montana (back when Miley Cyrus was a wholesome Disney teen), and blues jams at Jay’s in Little River, and eventually with Gabbie Ray’s own band.

With the help of her rock ‘n’ roll loving parents, Roger and Heide-Lynn Trial, Gabbie moved to Atlanta, and then to sunny southern California. “We live in Sherman Oakes,” said Gabbie, and we love it. Atlanta was an interesting experience, and a learning experience – let’s leave it at that.”

Finding out just how hard the real world of big showbiz can be, Gabbie still sounds bright, energetic and full of youthful enthusiasm. “I turn 18 in a few months,” she said, and “I’ll just continue to work on my career.”

Managed by Wendy Dio, the widow of Black Sabbath metal god, Ronnie James Dio, Gabbie says she’s finally found “her niche,” and though her parents introduced her to metal music, she’s fully embraced the style and sound on her own terms. Finding newfound success, trading in Hannah Montana for Dio, Heart and AC/DC, G-Ray’s album album of original material is set for release later this summer. Want to see G-Ray with Europe? Head to Atlanta for their Feb 6 show.

Flappers, Gangsters, Stompers at Pine Lakes Tavern

You’ve heard of Tarts & Vicars, Devils & Angles, Saints & Sinners? All excuses to dress in style and let loose. Tonight’s Flappers & Gangsters party (Thursday Feb. 4) at Pine Lakes Tavern encourages you to dress in the 20s and 30s style as you and fellow revelers enjoy the music of the critically acclaimed The 9^th Street Stompers, a four-piece swingin’ hot jazz and blues band from Chattanooga, Tenn.

Skip Frontz Jr, a co founder of the group, says that he and some of his fellow Stompers met while busking on the street in Chattanooga some three years ago. “We all played all kinds of music,” he said. “We had dabbled with Hot Swing—it’s challenging stuff—and decided to put a band together. We play originals and standards.”

Expect Zoot Suits, stand up bass, vintage guitars, a brush snare drum, and perhaps kazoos, known affectionately as the “9^th St Stompers Horn Section.” No cover charge, but a password is suggested (though not required). Show starts at 9 p.m.

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 12:02 AM with the headline "Gabbie Ray’s Homecoming and Pine Lakes Tavern’s Flappers."