Friends, family gather for Cafe Racer benefit concert

It’s been six months since the shootings at Seattle’s Cafe Racer killed four at the eclectic Roosevelt neighborhood hangout. And family, friends and band mates will gather for the first time since the aftermath of the tragedy for a benefit concert.

“You are left with an emptiness now,” Jimmy Berg, a friend and fellow musician with shooting victims Drew Keriakedes and Joe Albenese tells KING 5. “Now that the hoopla has died down and the intense grieving is over, it’s time to get on with our lives.”

Don Largen and Kim Layfield also died in the cafe when mentally ill gunman Ian Stawicki opened fire. Seattle mother and businesswoman Gloria Leonides was also killed in a downtown parking lot when she resisted Stawicki’s efforts to steal her car.

“The impact it had was pretty much an explosion,” Café Racer manager Nancy Neyhart said about her return to the business after the shootings. “I needed to be here for my friends. There are waves that happened, and you never know when they are coming or how they are going to hit you.”

Thursday night’s benefit concert will help raise money for the victim’s families and Leonard Meuse, the chef and lone survivor of the shootings. Brown Paper Tickets is offering special tickets featuring artwork by several nationally recognized artists to help generate more money for the cause. The show gets underway at 6 p.m. and features The Bad Things, Baby Gramps, Lonesome Shack and performance artist Queen Shmooquan.

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