Concert Too Cool For School

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Author: Riley Hooper

Silly Lupe. He’s just messing with us. He’ll be back out for an encore soon, I thought to myself after Lupe Fiasco bid Oxy adieu upon performing just three and a half songs last Wednesday. Oh, how I was wrong. He never came back.

There came a point about ten minutes into the “We want Lupe” chanting that I began to feel pathetic and defeated. Why is it that Oxy can’t put on a decent, large-scale concert?

I’d hardly call three and a half songs by Fiasco and a repeat of Apollo Night a real concert. It certainly wasn’t what those who dished out $10, $15, or $20 for a ticket were expecting. True, we got to see more of him than any of these amounts of money would get us in the real world. However, the event advertised Lupe Fiasco and that’s definitely not what we got.

Oxy is not experienced or prepared enough to put on events as large as “The Cool” was supposed to be, and I see the event’s disappointing outcome as an indication of this. Other colleges have concerts-big name artists who play full sets. Sometimes admission is even free. If Oxy is ever going to put on a big concert, they need to develop a better system to plan such events.

Fiasco’s unexpectedly brief performance and the show’s absence of advertised non-Oxy performers demonstrate poor event planning and communication. If the students who planned the event had received more guidance and better information from an experienced group of staff members on how to execute such an event, the concert would have run more smoothly.

The event’s claims of “multiculturalism” and its attempt to “raise awareness about prostate cancer” further indicate that Oxy needs to brush up on its event planning skills. Both hollow claims were blatant excuses for fulfilling the college’s requirement that ASOC funded events must be “community service” oriented, “cultural,” or “educational.”

While the concert was branded a “multicultural event to raise awareness about prostate cancer,” we all know it was about bringing Lupe Fiasco to Oxy. Demanding that the event have some other purpose was unfair and illogical. I don’t blame the event coordinators for tacking on these irrelevant causes to make the concert “educational” and “cultural.” They were just trying to bring something big to Oxy-and they went about it any way they could-but as a result, the concert was cast in a bad light.

If we are going to call a concert that consists of performers and audience members of different races and cultures “multicultural,” then I have only one question. What isn’t multicultural? Unless you’re in some remote civilization up in the Arctic, I’m pretty sure everything is influenced by or incorporates a variety of cultures.

Furthermore, the forced delivery of prostate cancer awareness was insulting. “Let’s take a moment to talk about why we’re all here,” said one of the MC’s before reading a prostate cancer fact (most likely printed straight off the internet earlier that day). Really? We’re here for prostate cancer? I’m pretty sure we’re actually all here for Lupe Fiasco. Between the speed and indifference of each MC’s delivery of facts, and the audience’s inability to shut up and listen to them, it could easily be inferred that no one in Thorne Hall that night actually cared about prostate cancer. Regardless of the bad taste this statement leaves in your mouth, the point is that the event wasn’t about prostate cancer in the first place.

Here’s a suggestion, Oxy. Just hear me out on this one. Maybe, just maybe, we could have an event someday that isn’t community service oriented, educational, or-heaven forbid-cultural. I know it’s radical, but sometimes you just gotta let loose and have fun.

If the College developed a better system for planning large-scale events, we just might be able to have a legitimate concert-one where the artist actually performs a full set, and we don’t have to pretend we’re there for any reason besides entertainment.

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