If you've spent the entire semester eating in Dewick, it might be difficult to imagine that it could be a venue for a concert. Cold slices of pizza, lukewarm french fries, long rows of folding tables, the lady who swipes the meal cards - the day-to-day dining hall is not exactly CBGB. So it may come as a surprise that tonight Dewick dispenses with its hairnet and lets loose, hosting punk rockers Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and the reggae and folk inflected rock group State Radio. It's not by some Hogwartsian transformation that Dewick undergoes its temporary transition into a rock club, but rather through a process involving weeks of planning and behind the scenes work that may never cross a concertgoer's mind.
But who arranges such quality shows in a dining hall venue?
Concert Board, the group responsible for tonight's show, is probably most often known as the group that turns the President's Lawn into an outdoor amphitheater every Spring Fling. While Spring Fling is undoubtedly Concert Board's biggest show, the Rock Show, Hip-Hop Show and Jumbo Jam also bring national acts to campus.
On top of tonight's concert, the board already brought former Wu-Tang member and solo rap star Method Man, alongside up-and-coming rapper Saigon, to campus Nov. 1. In the past, Concert Board has brought performers such as Guster, Blackalicious, The Slip, Matt Nathanson, Ryanhood, Broken Social Scene, Beenie Man and Immortal Technique.
Concert Board fluctuates in the size of its membership, ebbing and flowing as concerts approach, and meeting sizes can range anywhere from 15 to 50 people. Concert Board co-chair Devra Bergman, a junior, notes that "when it's time to start asking people to volunteer for Spring Fling and show up at the President's Lawn at 6 a.m., it's very hard to find our members."
Calling up Kanye to meet at Dewick at 7:30 isn't that easy
When partaking in the Spring Fling festivities, few probably think of the unfortunate handful of Concert Board members who saw the sunrise that morning while setting up. Most students remain unaware just what type of obstacles Concert Board members face in making these shows a reality. While some on campus might wonder why every year they don't just book Kanye and save some time looking at other bands, finding artists to play and booking them presents more challenges than might be expected.
During the first two meetings of the semester, a list of up to a hundred performers is drawn up by all the members of the Board. The Board then searches through myriad sources ranging from Facebook.com to Billboard magazine and live reviews to determine who would be the best received act on campus. After further whittling down the list by working with an agent to compare the bands' schedules and prices, there are usually somewhere between five and 15 bands left.
"At this point, we are really at the mercy of the music industry and the individual bands ... Bands book incredibly quickly," said co-chair Sarah Fleischmann, a junior. "We're often on the phone with our agent up to eight times daily, and we email him constantly with new ideas."
The planning hardly stops after the band is booked. On the day of the concert, the work spans from 9 a.m. in the morning of the concert until 2 a.m. that night, with members expected to set up the stage, sound and lights, as well as work as security during the concert. Members also work as Hospitality and Production Assistants, keeping the performer supplied with everything they need and driving the band from their hotel. "We help out the band by making sure that they have everything they need," Bergman said, "whether it be food or transportation or a place to play basketball."
When it comes to booking shows, Tufts' diversity yields mass grumblings
As it goes with any underappreciated asset on campus, you don't hear about Concert Board when a show goes well but instead only when someone is complaining. No matter what band Concert Board ends up bringing to campus, it is inevitable that they will be criticized for the choice. While every effort is made to appeal to the largest portion of campus possible, it speaks to Tufts' diverse listening preferences that there is no way to ensure that a band will please everyone.
"It can be discouraging to hear people's opinions after a deal has been made," Bergman said, "We try so hard to figure out who we should bring to campus, but it's impossible to keep 5,000 students happy."
With the main prerequisite for joining Concert Board being that you show up at their weekly meetings, it would seem more productive to go to the meetings than to gripe to your friends about the choices made.
Coming to meetings provides students a way to both understand how Concert Board works while at the same time giving them an idea as to what suggestions are feasible and realistic. "We really want to hear students' ideas," Fleischmann said, "but we need to hear them in a productive and constructive environment."
Even if there are the unavoidable grumblers, the response from students and artists to shows put on by Concert Board is usually overwhelmingly positive. For both the Hip-Hop Show with Method Man and tonight's Rock Show, tickets sold out well in advance. Bergman sees ticket-less students as a sign of success. She said, "One of my proudest moments was looking outside of Dewick during the Method Man concert and seeing about 20 students who didn't get tickets standing outside to see the show."
Artists also enjoy playing intimate shows at colleges, even if they're in a dining hall. Method Man played for an extra 45 minutes and performed one song from the middle of the crowd. Last year's Rock Show performers Broken Social Scene wrote a letter to the Board expressing their thanks after the show. For one of tonight's performers, it's the small acts of hospitality that make all the difference. "Food is always a good thing," said State Radio's Chad Stokes Urmston, "especially college cafeteria food. It's usually all-you-can-eat."
Tonight Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and State Radio are Dewicking it
Talking with Urmston, it's clear that, aside from all-you-can-eat buffets, his passion is music and that Concert Board has booked performers who do not take playing live lightly.
"We're not going to come up here and go through the motions. A bunch of these songs have a message in there, and we don't want to play through them," Urmston said, "We want to relive the reason we wrote them."
Most might know Urmston as a member of the popular but disbanded band Dispatch. State Radio has retained Dispatch's reputation as consummate performers, playing a mix of reggae, folk and rock reminiscent of the former band. Though touring can be tireless, State Radio maintains dynamism in its performances, "We try to bring in new songs as quickly as we can," Urmston said, "and find a new way to play this one tune if it's starting to get a little stale."
State Radio diverges most noticeably from Dispatch in its further embrace of overtly political themes. "I think with Dispatch I felt I was a little bit censored, and when State Radio started I felt like I could speak my mind. Over the course of the year we learnt to be constructive and that it's really easy to be negative," said Urmston.
With the release of "Us Against the Crown" in Feb. 2006, State Radio took on everything from poverty to the Iraq War. One of the most striking examples is "Camilo," which documents the true story of an Iraq war veteran who refused to return to the war. Urmston has a take on protest music unlike many other performers, "What we try to do is not present solutions but present an issue to start dialogue."
Looking at the other performer scheduled to play tonight, Concert Board's efforts to keep their shows eclectic is plainly evident. While State Radio offers political dissent amid a laid-back acoustic groove, Ted Leo, fresh off a tour with indie darlings Death Cab for Cutie, seems to leap through the speakers, grabbing the listener by the lapels and shaking them until they see all that is wrong with the world.
In a music business where all any high school kid needs to do to start a punk band is get a ride to the mall and max out their parents' credit card at Hot Topic, Ted Leo roars through tense and smart songs like the last of a dying breed, never mistaking layers of eyeliner for authenticity. Leo manages to consistently turn out tightly crafted albums, like "The Tyranny of Distance" (2001) and "Shake the Sheets" (2004), while taking on greater injustices in the world than how his parents gave him an unfair curfew when he was a teen.
Between the caliber of the bands that the Concert Board has secured and the fact that there are only 350 tickets available, it's easy to understand how this show sold out so fast. If you were lucky enough to get tickets to tonight's show, just remember not to give anyone working security a hard time. Not only have they spent weeks planning the whole concert, but after you've enjoyed the concert and gone home, they will be there, working late into the night, turning Dewick into an inconspicuous dining hall once again.
