Live music on campus, nobody cares

3/7/08

By Matt Vercillo
Critic Staff

Friday, Feb. 16 the Lyndon State student center was host to several live bands.

The event, which was originally advertised as four bands in one night, was free so it became the perfect opportunity for a review. The poster that I saw hanging in the hallway earlier that day had assured me of a few simple facts. First it was four bands, one night. Second, it started at 8:00 p.m. So, as I walked into the building around 7:50p.m., I was quite surprised to hear that the show had already started. I was late, but it was no fault of mine. I guess a fifth band got tacked on at the last minute, making it five bands and beginning at 7:30 p.m. Well, I grabbed myself a chair and took in what I could of the first band finishing up their set with a cover of Skynard’s “simple man” and an interesting version of “Fuel” by Metallica with an Eminem’s “lose yourself” tacked onto the beginning.

At this point I was still more or less trying to take in the scene. The place seemed packed. I began thinking about what a great turn out it had been. All of the tables were full and there were about 20 or 30 people standing around in front stage. The second band took about a half an hour to set up which left me to take the atmosphere in a little more.

I was beginning to feel al little uncomfortable. The turnout was good, that is to say there were a bunch of kids there. However, the more I looked around the more I started noticing things. Why were all their pants so tight? Why were these chicks so skinny? What is with that dude in the capri pants over there? Why is everyone giggling and standing in small, cliquish circles? Then, all at once it dawned on me. They actually were kids. High School students. I was really starting to get p****d off.

The next band finally began playing and distracted me from these observations for a bit. The next band took the stage and I was happy that at least they were playing original tunes. They were called Catamaran, and they played songs with a bit of surf-punk indie vibe to them. They played a half hour set, which turned out to be pretty much the format for all the acts.

Then something happened. The crowd started getting really worked up and excited. I noticed more and more empty energy drinks on the tables and more and more chattering shrieks of 15 year-old girls with braces and neon hair. I was beginning to become less than impressed with this whole event. There were maybe a handful of semi-recognizable strangers dotted around that I could picture going to LSC, but the rest were clearly not students here.

Without announcing their name, the third band began whaling away an obnoxious and distorted brand of hardcore metal, with the vocalist simply screaming into the microphone as horridly as he possible could. The less and less impressed I became of the situation, the more and more the crown seemed to dig what was going on. I was beginning to think this would be a waste of a Friday night.

The fourth came on and I immediately recognized them as the idiots who had propped the door next to my table open for twenty minutes while they carried their equipment in. It was freezing outside, so these guys started off on the wrong foot with me. They announced themselves as Astrada, from Manchester, N.H. Although the crowd seemed pretty much super pumped on these guys, I was failing to see the difference from the last band. It sounded exactly the same.

That pretty much seemed to be the theme from that point on as the next band, Our Drowning City, also sucked. They sounded exactly like Astrada, somebody growling into the mic with heavily distorted guitars. Three awful bands in a row was too much for me to handle and I left before the end of Our Drowning City’s set. I walked out wondering at what point music simply becomes noise.