Fox Tucson Theatre will be the center of attention Saturday during the May installment of 2nd Saturdays Downtown.
Tucson bands Ronstadt Generations and SQWRL — Sinfonia HealthCare’s house band — will perform a benefit concert for the Fox to help raise money to install a security surveillance system. The hope is that cameras will help discourage vandals like the ones who tagged the theater’s entrance April 26, said Fletcher McCusker, who owns Sinfonia HealthCare and has chaired the Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation.
Fox Theatre Executive Director Craig Sumberg said it will cost $5,000 to $7,500 for security cameras. Restoring the front entryway could cost another $5,000, he said.
McCusker will be on the Fox Theatre stage Saturday playing percussion and guitar with SQWRL — pronounced squirrel and taken from the line in the Disney movie “Up.” The band includes fellow Sinfonia employees Jim Kloster on guitar and vocals; Kevin Cain on bass; Aimee Keller on vocals; Michael Deitch on drums; Christian Moher on keyboards; and Tony Whitaker taking lead guitar. Vocalist David Slutes of Sidewinders/Sand Rubies fame — and also the entertainment guru at Hotel Congress — is sitting in with the band, McCusker said.
McCusker said there had been no concert scheduled for Fox during Second Saturdays, which would have meant that the west end of Congress Street was dark during the street festival. Second Saturdays, celebrating its fifth anniversary, routinely draws big crowds downtown, with performance stages set up along several thoroughfares and along Congress Street. Rialto Theatre and Club Congress also host concerts.
McCusker, president of the Rio Nuevo Board, was one of the drivers behind 2nd Saturdays when it was launched in 2010, and funded it in its early days through Providence Service Corp. McCusker retired from Providence in 2012.
McCusker has played drums in rock bands since he was 16 and attended Amphitheater High School. His music career continued through his college years at the University of Arizona.
