2004 Memorial graduate Ben Lester has joined indie folk singer A.A. Bondy on a U.S. tour. Lester, a percussion performance major at UWEC, has toured as a drummer with local music icon Bon Iver, for whom he is also stage manager. Lester met Bondy through Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon. “I told him that night I wanted to play with him someday,” says Lester. After a brief jam session at Vernon’s house, Bondy asked Lester to do just that. A.A. Bondy, previously of the band Verbena, recorded his solo album American Hearts on an isolated upstate New York farm. Bondy and back-up band will perform at Minneapolis’s 400 Bar on March 5th, and to UW-Madison the following day. A slot at the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee this June, alongside such diverse acts as Bruce Springsteen, Snoop Dogg, Nine Inch Nails, and – yes – Bon Iver, should add to Lester’s performance résumé and strengthen Eau Claire’s claim to musical fame.