Following his untimely death, John Forsthoefel’s legacy continues to live on thanks to one man and his band.
The day after attending his future son-in-law’s bachelor party, just a few weeks before his daughter’s wedding, John had a seizure and was quickly diagnosed with glioblastoma.
Resistant to most conventional therapy, glioblastoma is a brain cancer that “can result in death in six months or less,” according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
“This disease is not curable,” said John’s son, Adam Forsthoefel, who has been putting on a concert benefiting his father’s disease every year since his diagnosis. “It’s killed John McCain, and it killed the drummer of Rush…it’s really sad because I didn’t know there was an incurable cancer. I was like, ‘I thought you had a fighting chance.”
Adam said his father, who was an engineer, a hobby guitarist and a dedicated father, was as healthy as could be when he was diagnosed in 2015, by January of 2017, he was dead.
After learning about this incurable cancer, Adam said that he felt like he needed to do something, and inspired by his father’s love for rock music, he thought, what better way to raise money for research on his disease than a concert fundraiser?
Out of that, Rock’n Revival For the Cure at Southgate House Revival in Newport was started. It is currently in its ninth annual edition and has raised over $100,000 for glioblastoma research.
Around the time of his father’s diagnosis, Adam’s band, The Grove, had been playing gigs at Southgate House, and he reached out to them and asked if they would host the festival.
All of the credit for the success of the events goes to Adam, said the owner of Southgate House, Morrella Raleigh.
“He approached me with the idea,” said Raleigh. “And I said, Absolutely, let’s do it… He is the one who does the hard work of booking the bands and scheduling the time… I would think any parent would be proud to have a child who would do something like this very slowly.”
Adam, who is from Anderson Township, started his music career when he and his now drummer for The Grove, Jeff Voegele, signed up for the eighth-grade talent show. After they signed up, Adam said they thought, “Oh, we haven’t learned how to play instruments.”
The two played what Adam described as a “horrible, horrible” rendition of Back In Black by AC/DC, and after that, they were hooked. The two broke into the music scene while attending college at Ohio University, and after they returned, they added Adam’s brother Matthew Forsthoefel on keyboards and bassist Matt Holt. The group plays at various Cincinnati venues like ike The Northside Tavern, Bogarts, Madison Theater, Stanley’s Pub, and Southgate House Revival.
Raleigh said that she loves putting on Rock’n Revival For the Cure every year; local bands play on all three of their stages with genres ranging from rock to country to pop, “it covers a lot of different territory with a lot of the talent that we have here locally based and it’s just a fun night.”
Since its inception, Raleigh said, the event has been a hit.
“It’s one of our highest attended events every year,” said Raleigh. “It’s always in the top two or three top-attended events in a year for us. And so the response is amazing. And you know, it’s really kind of these types of events are kind of magical. You can’t really explain what it is to people until they come and experience it but you walk around you’ll, you’ll see people, you’ll see friends, but you’ll make new friends too.”
This year’s Rock’n Revival For the Cure features over 25 bands and is set for March 8. Tickets are $25 now and $30 at the door. The festival benefits the John Forsthoefel for Glioblastoma Research Foundation, which funds neurosurgery research through the University of Cincinnati.
John attended the first Rock’n Revival For the Cure, and every year since, it has been put on in his honor.
“That is what my dad liked to do anyways, concert drinking,” said Adam. “He just was a lot of fun… those are the memories when I think my dad.. if you ask him for his perfect night, it would be going to a concert, drinking, having fun with his friends. It wasn’t complicated.”
For more information on Rock’n Revival For the Cure, visit southgatehouse.com.