Saturday’s Spring Fling concert followed the recent trend of hosting wildly different types of musicians. This year, students got the chance to dance to a funk-rock band, a rapper and a mash-up duo.
The concert had no primary headliner, but Sage the Gemini was the biggest name to perform, with his singles “Gas Pedal” and “Red Nose.” In the middle of his set, Gemini took a break and walked off the stage for a few minutes, leaving the audience restless and listening to hits by other artists, like “CoCo” and “Shots.”
“We were having the most technical difficulties during his set,” said Stephanie Zagreda, Student Association vice president for programming and a senior majoring in English. “He wanted to stop for a minute to see if we could fix the issues that were happening.”
But Sage and his DJ handled the night’s technical difficulties graciously, apologizing to the audience for the delays and trying to keep them entertained in the interim. After the break, he reprised “Gas Pedal,” and audience members responded well to the familiar tune.
The White Panda followed Gemini, and played mash-ups with songs ranging from Capital Cities’ “Safe and Sound” to Tove Lo’s “Habits (Stay High).”
Bad Rabbits, playing before Gemini, played energetic rock songs, livening up the crowd with “Take it Off” and “Fall in Love.” Both Bad Rabbits and The White Panda played an extra 10 minutes each for their sets.
“They were having a good time, they saw the crowd was having a good time, and they decided to keep going for as long as they could,” Zagreda said.
Prime Ordeal, a 10-piece student band, opened the concert at 7:30 p.m. after winning the Battle of the Bands contest hosted by Late Nite for the past few weeks. With a singer, three guitarists, a drummer, a brass section and an excellent keyboardist, they played a mixture of covers — “Valerie” by Amy Winehouse and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Rod Stewart — and original songs.
The concert was held in front of the Science Library, where the Harpur Quad fountain stood as the centerpiece of this year’s crowd. Permission to use this area for the stage, which was initially ruled out, was secured just two weeks before and had to be built while Zagreda readjusted the layout of the festival.
“That one change had us on our toes, but it ended up working out very quickly, and it ended up working well,” Zagreda said. “Although we had that huge change happening very last minute, it did end up working out for the better.”
In recent years, the Student Association Programming Board (SAPB) hosted the concert in the grassy area in front of the Student Wing, nestled between the Lecture Hall and Academic Buildings. However, it was forced to change location because of construction in those areas. Originally, the two candidates for the concert location were either in front of the Old University Union by the bus stop, or on the Peace Quad. The SAPB ruled out the Peace Quad because, for technical reasons, the Spring Fling carnival rides needed to be set up in that area, and because the SAPB didn’t want the concert to interfere with “Tartuffe,” the theater department play held in the nearby Watters Theater in Fine Arts.
While there was no epic, rain-soaked finale this year, students still took full advantage of the free show, as the night ended with the fountain clear of people, but littered with the remnants of a good time.