The cool cars and hot rods came from all over the area to meet at one place — the Suds.
John DeLuca, Ted Mau and Bill Roberts remember those nights. No matter what you were doing during the day, teens knew that at some point, you’d end up at the Suds. They’d drive up and down the street, jumping out to grab a cheeseburger or coney dog and washing it all down with a cold root beer when they got hungry.
The roar of souped-up engines and top rock ‘n’ roll hits playing from the radios reverberating through the air.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
“This was the place to be. You’d drive around, make the circle and go back and forth,” Mau said. “I didn’t have a cool car, but I’d drive by. Then I’d jump in with a friend who had a cooler car.”
DeLuca, Mau and Roberts — all graduates of Greenwood High School — are coming back to their hometown hangout, and they’re bringing friends. They and the other members of the band Heartstone Crossing will be performing in concert Saturday night in conjunction with the Suds’ weekly drive-in.
The band is well-known throughout Johnson County and central Indiana, having performed on a regular basis since coming together to form its current lineup in 2016. But this will be their first time playing at the Suds, and the nostalgia-driven show has special meaning to the Greenwood grads.
“Most of our shows are like a Greenwood reunion, so we thought this would be perfect for us,” said DeLuca, bassist for the band. “Whenever we play on the southside, we get all of our old friends coming out.”
The Suds opened in 1957 as Dog n Suds, and quickly became a popular hangout for local youth and car fanatics.
The drive-in changed hands over the years, closing and opening again multiple times. In 2008, the Suds Hot Rod Club purchased the property, and its been revived as one of the best classic car cruise-in spots in the country, according to Car Craft Magazine.
“By 6 o’clock on Saturdays, it’s bumper to bumper going down through here, all night long,” said John Wagner, president of the Suds Hot Rod Club.
In the heyday of the Suds, DeLuca, Mau and Roberts were all students at Greenwood. DeLuca and Mau had formed a band with their friends that they called Stone Crossing, which Roberts later joined.
“We were interested in a lot of things, especially music. So we started playing around,” Mau said. “We had gigs at Our Lady of Greenwood, Center Grove, Whiteland, played high school kind of things.”
In 2011, the original band made a special return for the Class of 1971’s 40th high school reunion. Afterwards, DeLuca and Mau thought that it would fun to start performing more regularly again.
The band was reborn in 2016. They renamed the effort Heartstone Crossing, and brought in members Kat Fettig on vocals, Tim Hof on guitars and Todd Mitchell on drums.
“It’s pretty cool to look over and you’re playing with a guy that you played with 50 years ago,” DeLuca said.
True to their musical heritage, Heartstone Crossing specializes in the classic sounds of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Though they have standards that have become crowd favorites — “Twist and Shout” by the Beatles, “Gloria” by Van Morrison — they also are diverse enough to find unique additions to their set lists.
“We like to try to put a few different types of songs in our repertoire. You can get bored playing the same thing after years and years. So we try to uncover songs that are interesting to us. If we make them sound good, we think people will find them interesting too,” said Mau, who plays lead guitar and sings in the band.
The band has played at recent venues such as Mallow Run Winery, Garment Factory Events in Franklin and the Dugout in Fountain Square. But they had been hopeful to line up a show at the Suds sometime, just for nostalgia’s sake.
They were persistent enough with the Suds organizers that they finally got booked.
Heartstone Crossing will be set up on a stage at the far end of the Suds, giving plenty of room for the classic cars cruising in, as well as for those would want to sit and grab burgers, fries or other food.
“It’s a cool thing for us to do, because we’re from Greenwood. A lot of our friends still come out to hear the band, so we hopefully should get a good group out,” Mau said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”If you go” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Heartstone Crossing
What: A concert by the regional band performing classic rock and oldies music. Three of the members are Greenwood High School graduates.
When: 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday
Where: The Suds, 350 Market Plaza, Greenwood
Who: Ted Mau, lead guitar/vocals; Tim Hof, guitar/harmonica/vocals; Bill Roberts, keyboards; Kat Fettig, vocals; John DeLuca, bass; Todd Mitchell, drums
[sc:pullout-text-end]
