At one of the most successful concerts Bowdoin has held in recent memory, an estimated 1,100 people attended Broken Social Scene last Saturday. Students from Bowdoin accounted for roughly 60 percent of those who attended. The concert was sponsored by the College's radio station, WBOR.
"We've had some successful indoor shows but I don't think we've hit that number before," said Director of Student Life Allen Delong. "That's a good segment of a population to go to a concert."
According to WBOR Concert Director Micah McKay '09, doors were scheduled to open at 9 p.m. but WBOR decided to open doors at 8:30 instead because of the crowd that gathered outside Farley Field House well before 8. The Montreal-based group, Land of Talk, opened the concert around 9:30. Broken Social Scene followed at 11 and played until almost 1 a.m.
Most of the songs played by Land of Talk came from their newly-released EP, "Some Are Lakes." When the main act took the stage a half hour later, the lead singer for Land of Talk, Elizabeth Powell, joined the band on vocals. Most of Broken Social Scene's songs came from their 2002 release, "You Forgot It In People," while a number of other songs came from their eponymous 2005 album. The group also played songs from albums released under the names of individual band members, including vocalist Kevin Drew's "Spirit If..." and Brendan Canning's "Something For All Of Us..."
Mikel McCavana '12 said he preferred Land of Talk.
"The lead singer/guitarist did a lot of interesting things with capos and chords," he said.
Other students enjoyed the main act more.
"I liked Broken Social Scene a lot better. I thought they were just more fun to rock out to and they knew how to work the crowd a little bit better," Allie Foradas '10 said.
Overall, the concert was popular with students. According to Delong, the success of the event was due in large part to the efforts of McKay and student members of WBOR.
"The students from WBOR really did their homework in terms of which bands students are listening to and interested in seeing," he said. "There's not really a college student genre anymore so it's really hard to find a group that works across many student groups."
The concert was the first Bowdoin has ever hosted in Farley Field House. Similar events are normally hosted in Morrell Lounge, a much smaller venue, or in Morrell Gym, currently under construction.
"It was an interesting space because it didn't have the same acoustics a normal concert would have. However, the sound came out just fine in my opinion," said Zach Levin '09.
Three students?Abriel Ferreira '10, Sean Weathersby '10, and Cris Hall '11?were asked to perform in the brass section of Broken Social Scene alongside two other members of the group.
"About two hours before the concert, the band taught us about seven or eight songs," she said. "I hadn't listened to the band before, and they really didn't know what songs they were going to play in the concert, so they just taught us as much as they could. That was nerve-racking."
Nevertheless, Ferreira said she enjoyed playing with the group.
Toward the end of the concert, a minor incident occurred in which the lead singer, Kevin Drew, made a comment on stage that offended a group of Bowdoin students. Drew claimed that the students reacted violently and asked that they be removed from the concert. However, according to Bowdoin Security, the students did not behave violently and left the concert voluntarily.
The singer's behavior affected the concert experience for several students.
"The one thing that I didn't like was how the singer [Kevin Drew] was condescending to the crowd in a lot of ways," McCavana said.
"It's always an unsafe thing when a performer on stage uses a microphone to engage the crowd in that way," Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols said.
Despite the incident, Nichols was satisfied with the production.
"We were delighted with the event, and whenever you have a rock concert, a number of incidents will take place. On other college campuses, it's not uncommon to see a number of arrests take place at a single concert," he said. "Students had a good time for the most part and were well-behaved."