By Ben Cox
After a short hiatus, Jacksonville classic rock band Geezer is getting back onstage — and the group is returning with a purpose.
Geezer will perform from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4, at Pizza Records in Jacksonville in a benefit for the Jacksonville Area Food Center. The event will be a little different from a typical Geezer show: The band members won’t be taking any compensation. Instead, they are asking people to come out, enjoy some classic rock and give what they can to help the local food center.
“We hadn’t done a benefit for a while and we thought we ought to do that,” drummer and vocalist Gary Donohoo said.
The idea came together after Donohoo stopped into Pizza Records a few months ago and struck up a conversation with owners Devin and Heather Smock. The conversation eventually turned toward doing something for the community, and a benefit for the food center seemed like a natural fit.
Donohoo said donations can take whatever form people are able to give. Attendees can contribute money or bring food donations.
“We’d really appreciate it if they would show up and donate all they can to the food bank,” Donohoo said. “We don’t expect any compensation for this at all. We’re just doing it to help out and glad to do it.”
For Geezer, the show also represents something of a return.
The trio — Donohoo on drums and vocals, Stan Robinson on guitar and vocals, and Roy Mathy on bass and vocals — formed Geezer in 2011, playing their first show at the Downtown Turnaround. The three musicians had already spent
decades playing music in Jacksonville and throughout the region, however, and their history together and individually reaches back much further.
Geezer specializes in classic rock from the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, with all three members sharing vocal duties. The band’s longtime approach has been simple: play the songs they love and have a good time doing it.
The group took some time off for health issues affecting members of the band. Those issues have largely been resolved, and Geezer is now ready to resume playing a fuller schedule.
The Sept. 4 benefit isn’t even the band’s first show back. Geezer performed Aug. 22 at the Chandlerville Burgoo, marking the beginning of its return to regular gigging.
For Donohoo, getting back behind the drum kit is simply another chapter in a musical career that began when he was a teenager, growing up in the little town of Pearl in Pike County.
He started playing drums at about 13 and performed publicly for the first time around 15. His first band was The Dynamics, which played at the Kampsville Roller Skating Rink. After serving in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Oriskany during the Vietnam War, Donohoo returned home and resumed playing music in 1971.
His early post-Navy years included playing with bands such as the Country Drifters and the Country Orbits, followed by nearly seven years with Larry Wade and the Mixed Emotions. He later played with Midnight Blue from 1980 to 1983 and performed with several other local groups over the years.
Robinson and Mathy also brought extensive musical histories to Geezer. Robinson was inspired to become a musician after seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show as a 10-year-old.
He started the legendary local rock band Tapestry in 1971 with his aunt Judy Viera, Terry Brogdon, Gale Reid and Jim McNeely. Mathy met Robinson while in college and joined Tapestry as a full-time bass player in 1973, replacing Reid. Mathy also spent time with the Springfield-area band Jewel, which toured and recorded and opened shows for larger acts.
Together, the three musicians represent more than a century of combined experience playing music.
That history is part of what makes Geezer’s continued presence on local stages noteworthy. The opportunities for working bands have changed considerably since Donohoo started playing. In the 1970s and ‘80s, he remembers a much larger network of bars, clubs, veterans’ organizations, bowling alleys and other venues where local musicians could regularly find work. Today, there are fewer places for local bands to play. Yet Geezer has continued to find audiences.
The band’s first decade-plus included performances at local bars and events, an appearance aboard the Spirit of Peoria and the release of its first CD, “Rockin’, Rollin’ and Strollin’” in 2016. The album featured the band’s takes on classic songs from the same decades that continue to make up its live repertoire.
Geezer also released a CD in 2025 that was titled “C’mon Let’s Rock!”
Now, after the hiatus, the members are looking forward to doing what they’ve been doing for most of their lives: getting together, plugging in and playing.
And this time, they’re hoping the audience will bring something along besides a willingness to sing along.
The Sept. 4 show at Pizza Records will give Jacksonville residents an opportunity to hear a group of veteran local musicians while helping neighbors who rely on the Jacksonville Area Food Center.
For Geezer, it is a way of giving something back to the community that has supported the band for 15 years.
“Jacksonville’s been good to us,” Donohoo said.
Now Geezer is ready to give a little of that goodness back.
