Indie pop/alternative band Smallpools will perform on Thursday, April 27 as part of this year’s Ivies weekend, and electronic artist Vanic will open for headlining rapper A$AP Ferg on Saturday, April 29. The Entertainment Board (eBoard) released a video announcing the lineup last Friday. This year’s lineup is more musically diverse than previous years, according to eBoard co-chairs Brendan Civale ’17 and Arindam Jurakhan ’17.
The video was followed by an email to the student body on Monday, which included a link to the promotional video and short descriptions of each performer.
Civale and Jurakhan are happy with the lineup. A survey sent to the student body by eBoard in September found that students preferred rap music for the concert, followed by indie and E.D.M.
“We’re covering alternative, pop, E.D.M. and rap,” Civale said. “We’re covering a lot of bases, which is good.”
eBoard, comprised of 17 students, used survey responses from over 1,000 students to choose the weekend’s lineup. The survey asked students to select their favorite genre of music as well as some of their preferred artists from within each category.
“Rap was the most voted-for genre, so we thought a rap artist should be the headliner,” Civale said. “We ended up getting A$AP Ferg, who was the most voted-for artist in that category.”
Smallpools and Vanic were selected based on the remaining budget and survey responses. Last year, only two artists performed at Ivies. In the past, the lineup has fluctuated between two and three performers.
“If [a second performer] comes up and it’s like ‘Oh, this would be a steal,’ but it ends up taking the rest of our money, we’d just go for it,” Jurakhan said.
Civale reports receiving generally positive reactions to the three performers from students.
“From talking to friends and peers, people have been happy,” Civale said. “I’ve noticed that everyone has talked to me about a different artist they’re excited for.”
Clayton Starr ’19 appreciated the addition of Smallpools to this year’s lineup.
“Last year was all hype music all the time,” he said. “They didn’t really have an indie band, so that will be nice.”
A$AP Ferg’s most recent album, “Always Strive and Prosper,” was released in the spring of 2016 to widespread acclaim. “Work REMIX” is the artist’s most popular song and has over 82 million listens on the music streaming app Spotify.
“There’s buzz about him, and so I’m buzzing about him,” said Joseph Gowetski ’20.
Though less widely known than A$AP Ferg, Vanic’s popularity has been on the rise as the DJ shifts away from remixing existing songs to creating his own tracks. The up-and-coming DJ released “Too Soon” just over a month ago. The track has already garnered more than four million listens on Spotify.
Despite generally approving of the lineup, Starr believes this year’s concerts are generating less excitement around campus than last year’s headlining act, Waka Flocka Flame.
“It’s hard to beat the hype of Waka,” he said. “There’s nothing like it.”
Civale, who has been on eBoard for four years, disagreed.
“Every year [eBoard] has said that it’s the best, but we really do think this year is the best lineup we’ve ever had,” he said.
Due to the NESCAC Spring Track and Field Championships that take place on Whittier Field on April 29, Saturday’s concert will be held indoors at the William Farley Field House. Many students expressed disappointment when eBoard broke the news in December, but Civale and Jurakhan noted that the indoor concert creates new possibilities for performance and lighting effects.
“The good thing about being indoors is that there are perks that we haven’t had in the past that [students] will find out about soon,” Jurakhan said.