Dave Padrazo
Equinox Staff
The atmosphere of the Night Owl Café on Friday, Feb. 3 was one of excitement and high energy as four local bands performed in the café-esque area.
The lights were flashing and people were dancing as Keene local bands played away the night, with a variety of different songs for the “Band Jam,” a part of Winter Weekend. Band Jam ran for two hours, and many people who came stayed the entire duration of the event.
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The Winter Weekend is a weekend-long event at Keene State College, which includes events such as a school basketball game, an ice carver, the annual “Rail Jam,” and the concert event in the NOC.
The Band Jam was a completely free event open to students on campus, and followed up the event of the night before, the Red Carpet Dance.
Featured for the event were (in order of appearance on stage) The Calerpittars, The Wendigos, The Mild Revolution, and Brooks Hubbard. There was quite a large amount of people in attendance, and everyone greatly enjoyed the event.
One person in attendance, KSC student Erik Radermacher said, “I’m really glad I decided to come. It’s really cool to see bands that aren’t as well-known play and perform for the Winter Weekend,” he said.
“Everyone was really good but I think that my favorite was The Calerpittars. They have a great style of music,” Radermacher added.
The students around Radermacher, who nodded in agreement when the Calerpittars’ style was mentioned, agreed with this sentiment. There was plenty of support for the other bands that played Band Jam as well.
Pete Vallerie, freshman student at KSC, was very much in support of The Wendigos. “The bands are all good, no doubt about that,” Vallerie said.
“But The Wendigos definitely had a very sick, unique style. I enjoyed them a lot. They had a lot of personal investment into the music, and they were having fun up there, you could tell.”
Aside from the music, the NOC was also functioning as its usual drink and popcorn machines, with the addition of coffee and cookies for the attendees. The drink counter was the place everyone was going to get a break from the heat of the main area of the NOC. The conversation heard around the counter mainly revolved around people asking about the music being played, and about what they had missed during the concert so far.
Many people were taking pictures, and when asked about it, student Alexa Beliveau said, “I like the way the pictures come out in here. The lighting is pretty neat, and I get some good pictures. Some of my best were from concerts.”
“Musicians playing are one of the coolest things to take pictures of,” added Beliveau.
The music was varied, but for the most part, a lot of the songs seemed to be alternative, with some rock and some acoustic. The song choice was also interesting; some of the chosen songs were recognizable as covers, while some sounded like they were original songs written and performed by the bands. The bands all seemed to know what to play to get the crowd excited, or to slow down the crowd a little bit and get them in a relaxed mood.
KSC student John Riordan, when asked about the music being played, said, “Oh totally, some of these are covers. It’s cool, though; they take these well-known songs that most people know, and put their own spin on them and make them their own. Some of the songs I didn’t recognize, and I figure that must have been their originals. They were really good too though.”
The bands all had a very strong performance on stage, and were able to keep the audience interested through the entire event. KSC student Kevin Murphy said he enjoyed the event near the end of the night.
“[I] totally had fun tonight. It was great to chill and listen to these bands perform, and I will totally be coming again next year if Band Jam runs again. I wish it was a little better promoted because if more people were here I think it would have been even more fun than it already was.”
Dave Padrazo can be contacted at dpadrazo@ksc.mailcruiser.com