Indie band Grouplove will headline the fourth annual Cage Rage Concert at the Cousens Gymnasium's Carzo Cage on Nov. 15, Concert Board announced on its Facebook page last Friday.
The show will also feature performances by electronic music duo The Knocks and alternative rock and pop band Saints of Valory, Concert Board co-chairs Mark Bernardo and Julia Stein said.
Tickets for Cage Rage will be available for purchase online and at the Mayer Campus Center beginning on Nov. 4, according to Bernardo. Tufts students pay $5 for tickets and can buy up to two guest tickets for $10 each.
Stein noted that these prices are much lower than in the past. This year's tickets cost half the amount of last year's event.
"It costs less than a burrito," she said.
Doors will open at 7 p.m. on the night of the event and close at 9 p.m., Bernardo added. The show will officially begin at 8 p.m.
Stein and Bernardo officially confirmed the bands' participation on Aug. 22.
Stein, who explained that Concert Board thought of inviting Grouplove last year as an opener for Spring Fling, said she believed the band would put on a good live show.
"They always kind of pop up as an option, because they're just really fun and their music is great," Stein, a junior, said.
Bernardo, a junior, added that the group's music is lively and easy to dance to.
According to Stein and Bernardo, the show is part of the Campus Consciousness Tour, a music tour and environmental campaign aimed to motivate students to create a more sustainable future and to limit the environmental footprint of the show. The tour is a project by non-profit organization Reverb, which works to educate musicians about taking environmental action.
Stein explained that the first Cage Rage Concert, headlined by Passion Pit in 2010, was also part of this tour. She believes that the Campus Consciousness Tour is a good fit for Tufts, as it stands for many of the universities' environmental values.
"The school prides itself for being green and sustainable," she said.
On the day of the concert, student volunteers and tour sponsors will set up an "Eco-Village" in front of the Mayer Campus Center, Bernardo explained. Corporations like Ben & Jerry's, Lipton, Rainforest Alliance, UPS as well as student organizations such as Tufts Sustainability Collective will open booths to educate students on environmentalism and help generate excitement before the show.
"It's to just get people hyped and get the buzz going on campus," Stein said. "We saw it as a great opportunity to involve other groups on campus."
In the past, Concert Board has prepared a concert space for about 2,500 people but only sold about 1,800 tickets, Stein said.
"You walk in [the cage] and it just seems like it's empty, even though there's 1,500 people there," Stein said.
This year, she said, Concert Board has made the event smaller. Its first plan is to limit the number of tickets available until more students show interest.
"Right now we have 1,200 tickets as our cap, but there's no reason that we're not going to raise it," she said.
Stein and Bernardo further explained that they plan to set up the stage kitty-corner to the exit and bring it closer to students so that the room will be less empty regardless of how many people come. Stein said that these changes will make for better acoustics and a more intimate atmosphere.
Bernardo noted that Grouplove recently released a new CD, titled "Spreading Rumours."
"We knew over the summer that they were releasing an album around this time, so we thought it would be appropriate," he said.
After releasing the band names on Facebook, Concert Board received positive feedback from students who said Grouplove was a great choice, Bernardo said.
Sophomore Alandra Champion said that she is excited to attend Cage Rage this year.
"I only know two songs [by Grouplove], but they're more popular than last year's band, Cold War Kids," Champion said. "I didn't know them at all."
Stein and Bernardo said they felt reassured about their choice after a recent Grouplove concert at Somerville's Center for Arts at the Armory sold out quickly. While they believe Grouplove was a good selection, they said it can be hard to gauge how the rest of the campus will respond to a band.
"We're not here to bring the most exclusive bands," Stein said. "We want people on campus to have fun. We want to be able to reach the most people on campus as possible."
Bernardo was also happy that the tour was relatively inexpensive to bring to the Hill.
"It was a great price for the tour," he said. "It was definitely well within our budget.".
