We can’t think of a better way to usher in 2026 than being crammed into a club facing down a 70-year-old, saxophone-playing, oiled-up possible vampire. It’s just the right dose of surrealist, unselfconscious joy to make for a dandy palate cleanser to 2025’s unrelenting grimness. And it’s happening. It’s real.
That this saxophonist (maybe) vampire has one truly great 1980s anthem in “I Still Believe” under his studded belt is a bonus.
We’re speaking, of course, of Tim Cappello, known to several successive generations of film freaks as the jacked-up and well-lubricated sax player jamming with Tina Turner both onstage and on screen in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and leading his own band in iconic teen vampire flick Lost Boys in the 1980s.
But here’s the thing: Whereas Cappello could have been just a footnote in pop-culture history, instead he grabbed hold of both his sax and his own creative destiny and kept at it — playing gigs with ponytail, physique and hip-thrusts fully intact. Cappello is very much in on the joke, and like every good comic, he knows that it’s all in the conviction of the delivery. Plus, his “I Still Believe” is a rock-solid jam.
Orlando Weekly reached Cappello at the very un-undead hour of 9 a.m. to talk about his live return to Orlando after a couple of years’ absence. Yes, Cappello will be back on stage at Will’s Pub on Wednesday, Dec. 31 with Super Passive and Smilin Dan , and he’ll be the last thing lucky attendees will see of 2025 on New Year’s Eve.
“Me and Will’s pub are just meant to be together,” says Cappello. “I consider that a home away from home. I love it there. They are just absolutely right up my alley, and they take care of me so well.”
Reminiscing about the 2023 show at Will’s, talk turns to how he started the show snaking through the crowd, into the bar area, playing irreverent blurts and wails on his sax as people crowded around him, yelling appreciatively and taking video. (Not unlike Ohio sax maniac Bobb Hatt, oddly.) We wonder what goes through his mind when he gets down with the people like that.
“First I’m thinking, ‘Am I going to come out of that with an intact saxophone?’” Cappello laughs. “Is somebody going to, like, get so excited that they raise their fists and yell, and I’m left with something that sounds like I’m playing in a marching band? I could care less if somebody punched me in the face by accident. I understand that entirely. But the whole thing of you not having a saxophone that’s going to make it through the night, that’s scary!”
Accidental face-strikes aside, Central Florida seems to be a place that has particularly taken Cappello to heart. Maybe it’s because Tampa was a hotbed for goth in the 1980s/1990s (see: Castle, The), or maybe it’s because we in Orlando have a soft spot for larger-than-life heroes and villains (see: Epic Universe). And it’s not just a nostalgia thing, either. While there are fans who clearly came of age watching Kiefer Sutherland smolder in a blond mullet wig, there are just as many young folks who weren’t even a glimmer in their parents’ eye when Lost Boys came out.
“Go ahead and rub it in!” jokes Cappello.
To which we reply: You’re a vampire, come on now.
“When I did the film, it made no dent on anything. I never got one gig out of it. It never mattered. Then when I became [fans’] grandfathers’ age, with that Saturday Night Live Jon Hamm skit, that is when people started calling me. … When I played gigs 20 years ago, there was hardly anybody there, and then, for some reason … in my 70s, for some weird reason, people want to come out and see me.”
This multigenerational appeal that Cappello is so amazed by is particularly strong in Florida. Cappello says that it’s been either feast or famine here in the Sunshine State.
“Florida crowds are either not interested at all, or else they’re the absolute best crowd that you could ever have,” says Cappello, adding that it’s leaning more toward the latter of late. “I’m the luckiest guy in the solar system. … Their grandfather in a pair of purple tights, shaking his ass. I mean, who would ever pay for that?”
Adding even more to the “good luck” side of Cappello’s ledger is his recent collaboration with on-the-rise synthwavers Gunship on “Tech Noir 2,” laying a sax solo over the futuristic grooves.
“Like I said, talk about the luckiest dude in the world! This is one of the great acts that is just totally up my alley. And they are the most talented people. They are just killing me, you know, I listen and I go, ‘OK, I’m doing good. I sound good. But that’s not even close to what they’re doing.’ They are laying it down.”
And Cappello wasn’t the only legend recruited for the single and video — horror icon John Carpenter did a narrative intro for the song.
“Oh my god, this is an idol of mine! It’s just plain old chance that somebody must have said, ‘Hey, the crazy guy that used to play with Tina Turner and was in Lost Boys, let’s see what he can do,’” says Cappello. “And it turned out to be one of the most satisfying musical experiences.”
But looking ahead, you’d best believe that Cappello is going to make sure he’s on stage when the clock strikes midnight Wednesday.
“We’re going to time this as best as we possibly can,” promises Cappello. “There’s no way that I could not play ‘Auld Lang Syne’ for everyone. We can all enjoy ourselves and then break it in.”
Start the year right, Orlando.
8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 31, Will’s Pub, 1042 N. Mills Ave., willspub.org, $20.
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This article appears in Dec. 31, 2025–Jan. 6, 2026.