The eighth annual Thundergong! brought musicians, actors, athletes, and fans from around the world to the Uptown Theater on Saturday. By night’s end, it raised $847,947 for amputees.
Every year, the concert is hosted by longtime friends and Kansas Citians Jason Sudeikis and Summer Breeze drummer Billy Brimblecom, Jr. It benefits the Steps of Faith Foundation, which helps amputees with little or no health insurance get prosthetic limbs, which can cost over $10,000. Brimblecom, who has a prosthetic leg, is the CEO of Steps of Faith.
(You can still donate to the Thundergong! drive until November 15 by texting STEPS to 44321 or following this link. You can donate to Steps of Faith any day.)
Here’s what went down at the Uptown last Saturday.
An Eclectic Lineup
As usual, Sudeikis and Brimblecom did more than host. Sudeikis sang throughout the night, and Brimblecom drummed all night with the house band, Summer Breeze.
Sudeikis’s Ted Lasso costars Cristo Fernández and Brendan Hunt (or Dani Rojas and Coach Beard) took the stage several times, as did his fellow SNL alum Will Forte. Jason Barnes, a DJ and drummer, performed twice using specialized prosthetic right arms.
Paralympian and broadcaster Lacey Henderson addressed the audience, as did husband and wife Hunter Woodhall and Tara Davis-Woodhall, gold medalists in the Paralympics and Olympics respectively.
Flavor Flav and “Weird Al” Yankovic both performed solo and as part of duos; Flav with Sudeikis and Yankovic with Forte.
Musical Highlights
- Sudeikis started the night with a rendition of Live and Let Die and returned with ballads by Billie Eilish and Van Morrison. Late in the night, he rapped Chuck D’s part in Bring the Noise with Flavor Flav. He did great.
- Fernández and Hunt carried quite the musical load, performing at least three times each—and never without an outfit change. A scantily clad, hula-hooping luchador matching Hunt’s dimensions also made a brief appearance.
- During a performance of One More Minute, “Weird Al” handed lucky audience members a pair of underwear and a fork.
- He and Forte covered Chappell Roan’s Hot to Go without changing any lyrics. “Weird Al” called that a novel concept. Here’s a video.
- In a Thundergong! tradition, the whole lineup sang With a Little Help from My Friends (the Joe Cocker version, of course) to end the night.
Steps of Faith’s Impact
Steps of Faith has helped 1,540 amputees so far, including 384 this year. During just one song at the event, the foundation raised over $35,000 on its text line.
The night’s spotlight was on Linda, 28, a nursing student in Oklahoma who lost her leg while in her home country of Nigeria. She wore a painful prosthetic for over a decade. She learned of Steps of Faith, applied, and received a new, more comfortable leg.
The foundation’s director of development, Marci Theel, says it raised more during Linda’s segment than it had for any spotlight previously.