Since classes ended Tuesday there has been a lot of excitement on campus. The usual spectrum of emotions on campus, from debauched partying to anxious studying, has been amplified tenfold making campus a very exciting place to be right now.
The two maxims of "Live to party" and "Strive to stay alive" combine to describe these last moments we have before summer begins.
Along with all the projects and tests that conclude the end of classes, there is also been a surge of FREE public performances that are the culmination of the live-arts classes. Everybody should check out whatever is planned next for Dixon Hall because I have seen two great shows there already in the past two days.
I have to shout out to the people who really rocked the stage during the African dance performance Wednesday and the Green Envy concert earlier tonight:
-Nothing made the crowd more hyped than the multiple backflips Quentin Alston did during his routine. I saw him and his dance partners outside the show before it began, sweating, anxiously waiting on their fourth man to show up. Not only was dude already an hour and half late but he was also carrying the Zulu warrior costumes that none of them had seen yet, much less danced in. So give Quentin and the other guys a pound simply because praise should be given to any dudes who have the balls to dance on stage in front of their peers dressed in grass thongs, dancing with black and white spray-painted shields that look like farm cows.
-But, honestly, they didn't really own the stage like Ellen Bull did. While some nervously adjusted their tribal robes, she took control of the performance like she was Nzinga incarnate back at the table with the Portugese. Personally I always dance best when I pretend nobody is looking at me but the smile on Ellen's face as she worked it showed she wasn't scared. She knew we had come to clap for somebody, so she must have figured that it might as well be for her.
- A Cappella groups are such a staple of colleges across the country that we tend to disregard them before a note is even sung. And its not without cause that they suffer such bad reputations: my brother was in an a cappella group in high school with four lanky dweebs who sang barbershop-quartet harmonies.
Technically a cappella songs are complicated layers of sound that take real coordination to pull off, but singing songs that were popular on 78's is asking for the scorn of your peers. And if Green Envy had started off there show with something stupid like a coffee jingle, I'm sure I wouldn't have been the only fool tempted to interrupt it by yelling obscenities.
But of course I didn't do that, just as the Green Envy avoided any and all lame music. To be perfectly honest about it, a few of the songs I would've assumed would be lame but the purity of 14 voices all singing the same thing really highlights the quality of a good composition.
For instance, Amber by 311 is a universal college favorite that I enjoyed for some years until I actually listened to the lyrics. Ever since then I can't help but to roll my eyes at the stupidity of the stoner chorus. Can you imagine actually stepping to a girl and telling her what "the color of her energy" was? I guess its different if you have a guitar in your hands but whatever...until tonight I'd forgotten that the song sounds really pleasant. And as I sat listening with my eyes closed I wondered "How in the hell is Green Envy able to actually sound just like the recorded song?" Their version would have been identical to my ears had they not made its sound better than 311 ever did. They have an awesome ability to mimic the strangest and most minute sounds in a song making themselves sound like the original band and each of its players. That mastery of complex sounds showed especially with Eleanor Rigby.
No Tulane student who has ever shaken his ass at a house party could argue with the songs they picked out: two 80's power ballads! Somebody to Love by Queen and Take on Me by A-ha (next time you see him, give James Lowther a pound for hitting that high note from the chorus. You know the one, just sing it in your head it for a second)
Also before tonight, I had heard Regina Spektor's Fidelity one too many times as a cellphone ringtone.. So Marisa Sack's version made me fall for that song all over again. And freshman Maggie Windler did a good job reviving a song that was popular when she was five year's old: Ace of Base's The Sign.
To top it off they ended with the Killer's All These Things That I've Done, which is a song that rocks, much like themselves. If you make it out to their next show I'm confident you too will be rocked. Until that next show happens, you can pick up the CD they are about to drop in August.
Or you can burn it from a friend like I plan to do.
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