Kick

Kick was conceived in 1996 as little more than an excuse for five guys from Connecticut to have fun playing songs they liked at the clubs they’d just be hanging out anyway (and, according to one of the more ambitious entries of their mission statement: “to someday leave a club with more money than (they) went in with.”)

Kick was intended to be a side project from their various well-established original bands. And while those bands had built solid reputations, selling tens of thousands of albums and touring the country with some of the biggest names in rock, the virtually overnight success of Kick would ultimately afford them the opportunity to perform for over a million music fans at virtually every major venue in the Northeast.

Kick quickly earned a reputation as “easily the top show band in New England…live, they actually look, perform, and sound better than a lot of the original artists” (Music News Express) and “the most professional modern rock cover band I’ve ever seen. Masterful.” (Hartford Advocate). In national auditions, MTV said Kick was “Perfect” and VH1 concurred they are “an outstanding band.” Regional editions of Life magazine called them “Awesome,” and they’ve amassed over a dozen consecutive nominations and multiple victories as Best Cover Band and Readers Choice in the Grand Band Slam Poll Awards and Snow Slam competitions.

Today, Kick is widely regarded as one of the best-sounding, most sonically accurate, professional, and visually entertaining rockshows in North America. They’ve brought their unique brand of musical entertainment to venues from the ski mountains of Vermont to the beach resorts of Newport, the Jersey Shore, Block Island, and Cape Cod; from college festivals to corporate events, amusement parks, and weddings; from the streets of New York to Boston’s Faneuil Hall and several major amphitheaters.

Kick’s professionalism and the diversity of their repertoire has enabled them to open for acts as varied as international 80s pop icons Duran Duran and modern rock legends Staind (not to mention ska kings Reel Big Fish, grunge stars Filter, and a variety of other major label acts too numerous to mention).

Keeping true to their booking edict of: “wherever there’s a good time to be had and great people to rock,” the band has performed at such prestigious venues as Gillette Stadium, Bushnell Memorial Auditorium, Yale Bowl, Toad’s Place, Riverfront Amphitheater, Mohegan Sun Resort and Casino, Six Flags, Willowbrook Park Stadium, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, and UConn’s Rentschler Stadium, where they performed before every Huskies football game for four years. From Lady Gaga to Metallica, the band guarantees their audience members will go home having heard at least one song they like. (If not dozens.)

Perhaps most important, Kick has been civic-minded since its inception, performing at charity events for the Special Olympics, Relay for Life, Dream Ride, American Cancer Society, Make a Wish Foundation, Team Fox for Parkinson’s Research, Nutmeg State Games, and the Brian A. Aselton Memorial Fund among several others. And the band is a proud member of the National Association for Campus Activities, and has performed at events for such fine institutions as Providence College, University of Hartford, University of Connecticut, Fairfield University, Sacred Heart University, Trinity College, and Eastern Connecticut State University.

Kick is commemorating its 16th year with a tour sponsored by Coors Light, Ovation Guitars,  Hype Energy Drink, and 96.5-TIC FM. For additional up-to-the-minute information about the band, visit the website KICKband.com, or “Kick Tunes” on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and MySpace.