An Inside Look at the Samford Lakeshore Performance

By Jimin Lee and Elena Turcios

What was thought to be just another assembly quickly became an unforgettable theater bursting with energy and a shared, electrifying spirit that live music so powerfully creates. By the time the Lakeshore members had everyone standing, the energy was unstoppable. The concert was far beyond any typical community time event. Students were on their feet, jumping, dancing, singing along, filling the aisles, crowding the edge of the stage, waving phone lights, and sharing looks of excitement. Outside, middle schoolers danced along, and the exhilarating buzz of energy carried throughout the day. As the final song came to a close, chants for one more song rippled throughout the crowd, and the encore erupted into a bittersweet finale to what would become a lasting memory for many. In that fleeting half-hour, the student body shared a sense of camaraderie and belonging that, even for a brief moment, inspired pride to be a part of the BGA community. 

We spoke with Steven Potaczek, Lakeshore’s Founding Director & Associate Professor of Commercial Music at Samford, who watched from behind the stage, to hear the band’s inside perspective on their BGA performance:

Could you give us a brief rundown of who and what is Lakeshore? What’s the story behind the name Lakeshore?

We’re from Samford University, and we have a commercial music program, which is basically a program for students who are interested in music that makes money, essentially, commercial music. We started a few ensembles for those students, and Lakeshore is one of three different bands that commercial students and Samford can be a part of. Those three bands are all named after streets at Samford University, and Lakeshore is our main street.

What was your experience with or impression of the audience and energy playing that day, along with the encore? Does this usually happen at your concerts?

Yeah, it usually happens, actually, at our concerts, but I wanted to be respectful of your school, and we were prepared to play an encore. It wasn’t like it was a huge surprise, but I didn’t really think that you guys, the student administration, and the principal would have wanted us to, and so when they were going crazy for it, we were kind of like “Oh! okay I guess we’ll keep playing.”

Were there any other memorable moments from your performance at BGA?

Your guys’ energy was just so on fire. The band plays a lot of shows, and sometimes you know, we just played up the street at CPA and another different school, and we just didn’t have that energy from the crowd. And so the performance just isn’t that good if the audience isn’t into it, which I think is part of the reason why the show with you guys was so good. So y’all are just amazing and on fire.

What is Lakeshore’s favorite song to perform?

Oh, that’s tough. Everybody’s got a different favorite song in the group. But I would say by and large either “Finesse” or “Breaking Dishes,” depending on who you ask.

What advice would you give high school students who are interested in pursuing music?

You guys have a teacher there, Mr. Jeremy Bryant, and he has a somewhat similar ensemble there in your school (CME), and I would really recommend students get involved with his program if you can and if you’re serious about studying and doing it as a career, study commercial music at Samford.

Will Lakeshore be coming back to BGA?

We’re ready to come back next week, let’s go! No, seriously, Mr Bryant and your principal were already asking us, and we said, well, we would love to come back next year if y’all would have us!

Do you have any upcoming projects or shows?

We’ll be playing a few shows in the Birmingham area where we’re from, but we may be coming back to Nashville, probably we’re looking at sometime in March. There’s some possibility there, really depends on what shows we get booked.

We were so thankful to get to play at y’all’s school, and we hope to come back and do it again!

The whole point of the band Lakeshore coming to BGA was to help us through a dreadful, hard, and long week. It helped give energy to students and even raised school spirit! This band helped connect the high school as a whole because typically, freshmen are separated from every other grade, but as the mosh pit was created, it created a welcoming environment for the whole high school to be together in just one area. The performance helped us realize that music can shift the attitude of multiple students during a long week, from stress to rest. This was the much-needed mental break that the student body as a whole needed.