Nostalgia trip: McHenry ’80s band Moon reuniting for benefit show at The Vixen

There was a phase in the early 1980s – when Moon came together, played for a few years, gained a following and then broke up – that reminds Scott Thompson of the “Summer of ‘69.”

It was the winter of 1980 when Moon, the band he helped form in McHenry County, started playing gigs around Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, Thompson said.

But “instead of ‘Jimmy quit and Jody got married,’” as in the Bryan Adams song, “it was Brian quit and Danny got married” when Moon broke up a few years later, Thompson said.

Now, the band is getting back together. Moon is set to play a 45th anniversary reunion concert and fundraiser at 6 p.m. Saturday, July 26, at The Vixen, 1208 N. Green St. in McHenry. Proceeds from the all-ages show will be donated to the Illinois CancerCare Foundation in honor of band members who have died from cancer.

The McHenry-based rock band’s backstory sounds like a music legend: Thompson and Dannie Schramm bought guitars in middle school and started a band with Dannie’s older brother, drummer Don Schramm. They played at backyard parties and in basements in McHenry, working out a hard-driving rock sound and moving into a rented house together just after high school.

Then, knowing they needed a lead guitarist, they put up a flyer at music stores in the area to recruit applications, Thompson said.

“I was ... looking for a project, a band to get into,” Brian Priest said, when he saw the flyer at The Player’s Bench in Crystal Lake. That was Valentine’s Day, 1980.

The bass player who answered the phone said they’d found a guy, but invited Priest to come out, anyway, and play.

“The rest is history,” Priest said. “We knew right away that we clicked.”

Over the next three years, the group played hundreds of shows, recorded a 45 album and opened for bands like Survivor and Steppenwolf when they performed in the area.

“We had a huge following at the time,” Priest said.

At one point, they met the members of Van Halen, and there was talk of doing something with the national act.

“There were moments of starlight at our fingertips, but we were trying to do it all on our own,” Priest said.

Priest was older than the other guys at 26, already married with children and a Vietnam-era veteran. Priest and Danny Schramm were writing original songs, but the constant rehearsing and shows got to be a grind. Priest quit the band.

Just after Priest left, Thompson, another guitarist and Don Schramm moved to Arizona and tried to make it from there – and that is when Don Schramm got married.

“We faded apart after that,” Thompson said.

Priest later also moved to Arizona, where he worked in municipal government and then for the U.S. State Department while still playing music and writing songs. Thompson started a construction business back in Illinois. They stayed in touch and would get together, and even play together, now and then.

Don Schramm died from cancer in 2020, and another friend, Kent Butler, who was Moon’s stage manager, died from cancer in December.

It was at Butler’s celebration of life that Priest, now living back in Illinois, started talking with Thompson and Schramm about a fundraiser concert in memory of their bandmates and friends. They reached out to the management at The Vixen about hosting the show.

“I remember everyone talking about this band back when I was in high school,” said Bobbi Baehne, the contract marketing manager for the club and a McHenry City Council member. “They had an impact on McHenry back in the day.”

The online ticketing company waived fees for the show “to get more people in and have more of the money going to the cancer foundation,” Baehne said.

Moon has been practicing together a few times a week since members decided to do the show, Dannie Schramm said. His son, Vaughn, is playing with them, and Ken Schultz will be on drums.

When they first got back together, rehearsals were a little rough, Schramm said. “We had to relearn some things, but it is coming together quite well. It is going to be a great night.”

Doors open at 6 p.m. Saturday for the show. More information is at vixenmchenry.com/event/moon-45th-anniversary.