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The Diddy Gritty

Pub Night Prospectus: prospects seem slim

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

February 8, 2008

I partied in the rain at Pine Fest and weathered freezing temperatures on Halloween night in a bathrobe. I have trudged in the snow from Stowe Inn to Crackhouse at 1 a.m. just to see what was going on there. According to many of my peers, I have earned the title of an official party connoisseur at Bowdoin due to my dogged dedication to high fun levels and my keen acumen for predicting how a weekend will turn out here.

Every weekend since I arrived here, I have tried my hardest to show my fellow classmates that Bowdoin can be a good time despite its regional reputation for being a relatively calm and boring school. According to my calculations, if I had dedicated all the weekends I have spent pursuing excess during my time here I could probably be proficient in at least two other languages aside from English.

I am certainly now in the twilight of my academic career, but I'm not going to let that time just go to waste. I'm going to use my breadth of partying knowledge and my forum here to investigate the mystery of why Pub funds are continually used to pay for and harbor mediocre live bands despite very poor attendance and low fun levels that plague most Thursday nights at the Pub.

As a keen observer of Pub Night activities, I have seen more people eating pizza and chatting outside the pub during live band nights than actually inside watching the band. I'm not saying that these bands aren't talented. All I'm saying is that some of their music styles are too niche for most Bowdoin students' tastes. If I were in one these bands, I would consider it a slap in the face to be invited up to play for 20 people, and of that 20, 11 only came into the Pub because they didn't realize their takeout was available for pick-up at the back counter.

The more economical and fun option is the student DJ. Pub Night attendance speaks for itself on this matter. On Thursday nights when the DJ is spinning hip-hop and house music, the Pub is at fire capacity with a 30-minute wait at the door to just get in, everyone is inside cutting a little rug, and the student bartenders are actually making some tip money. What makes the DJ more appealing than live bands is not only that their music selections can actually be danced to but, more importantly, that their music selections are fairly predictable and will appeal to a broad swath of the Bowdoin population, not merely the standard 17 to 28 people that live bands consistently attract. We all know that while most Bowdoin students can't dance, they still like to try. As a side note, to the guy who gets up on top of the speaker every DJ night, please stop. It was funny the first time but now it's just sad.

I'm all for inclusiveness and diversity of musical tastes but perhaps the DJ could be put into a heavier bi-weekly rotation. This would not only save the Pub money on bringing Joe Live Band from Hoboken, N.J. all the way up to Maine to play for themselves, but also allow it to redeploy the money to bring more well-known bands. My plan would work to both curtail the insane waits and crowdedness that accompany the rare DJ night by making them more frequent. It would also allow the Pub Fund to focus its resources on securing quality acts while giving them more time to advertise each band's distinctive sound which will cause students to actually come and check them out and realize that some of these bands aren't "just another live band."

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