GARDNER — It was a return to normalcy for the Polish American Citizens Club (PACC). 

On June 4, The Sufferin’ Bastards – a local rock band – hit the stage to resume the PACC’s decade-long Friday night festivity: Friday Night Bands, part of the Club’s Cruise Nights car show series.

“This [event] is great. It helps us survive in this terrible pandemic we just made it through,” said David Mellitt, the PACC’s bar manager who helps organize the event.

The Sufferin’ Bastards are a cover band that have been playing together in the Gardner area for the past 20 years. Through word of mouth, they typically attract crowds of about 200 to 300 fans to their shows – pre-pandemic, of course. Now, as COVID-19 vaccinations ramp up, the musicians find themselves in front of a live audience again.

There are no pretensions amongst these rockers; lead guitarist Nicholas Langlois is a self-employed electrician; Christopher Coombs, the other lead guitarist, is a guitar teacher at City Music in Gardner and Leominster; bassist Ronnie Cormier runs his own car repair business called Ron’s Auto Body; and the drummer and singer of the band, John Nobrega, is a mail handler for the United States Postal Service. 

Both guitarists have impressive musical creds under their belt. Four years ago, Langlois went on tour with Anthony K, a country musician originally from Gardner who is now based out of Nashville, Tennessee. 

Coombs, who used to play guitar for Andromeda Taxi – a local rock band of some renown that emerged in Fitchburg in the 1980s and dissipated in the 1990s – opened up for The Allman Brothers Band in 2007 at the Meadowbrook Musical Arts Center in Gilford, New Hampshire. 

According to Cormier, The Sufferin’ Bastards are primarily influenced by the now old-time rockers 

Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Rolling Stones. That was evidenced by Friday night’s setlist, which included “Saturday Night Special” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Waiting on a Friend” by The Rolling Stones, ZZ Top’s “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” and “U.S. Blues” by The Grateful Dead.

Cormier said that the band decided to name themselves after the popular Tiki bar cocktail drink during a drunken night out decades ago. 

“When we talked about being a band, we were in a Chinese restaurant drinking one night,” Cormier explained. “We were having Suffering Bastards and we said ‘why wouldn’t we?’”

For more info on the PACC’s events, please go to: https://www.gardnerpacc.com/upcoming-events.