Unorganized Spring Concert proves disappointing, chaotic

I think that I speak not only for myself, but for most of the senior class when I say that I am disappointed.

This year's Spring Concert turned out to be a total flop, continuing a trend of bad performances that has stretched the length of my four years at Saint Joseph's'.

I was optimistic about this year's concert, held the night of April 10 in Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse. I was even excited. I like Lupe Fiasco; I have his new CD on iTunes, and I was looking forward to a good performance.

I was aware that there would be three opening acts-St. Joe's' own band The Quelle Source, Cobra Starship, and Trey Songz, who I had heard was pretty good.

When the concert began at 7:30 p.m., the problems began immediately. As I arrived with a small group of friends, we were told that we could not stand on the floor and were stuffed into bleacher seats on either side of the stage.

We figured the floor must have already been packed, so we reluctantly headed up to the bleachers only to find that the floor was half empty. There was room for hundreds more students there, but for some reason we were told we were not allowed down.

I liked the idea of The Quelle Source as an opening act. It gave a Saint Joseph's-based band some good exposure and an opportunity to open for a major act.

Their performance was good-much better than the two acts that followed.

By the time Cobra Starship took the stage and their emaciated lead singer started shrieking, most of the faces in the stands began to yawn and look bored. They did not play for too long, luckily, except for the fact that the now-infamous Trey Songz followed them.

Trey Songz bounded onto the stage after much hype from his DJ, rapping terribly and doing his best to dance. He sounded like Usher with a cold, and almost immediately began to have problems with his sound equipment.

As a result, his performance was stopped, and he stood awkwardly on stage as sound technicians tried to fix the problem.

Every once in a while he would bust into song, and after the better part of an hour the problem was still not fixed. As the students in the crowd grew more and more frustrated, many began to leave.

The concert had been going on for two hours and Lupe Fiasco had yet to appear.

As chants of "St. Joe's sucks!" and "Get off stage!" began to break out, Songz tried weakly to better the situation by bringing a girl on stage, stripping to his undershirt, straddling the girl in a chair, and attempting to smoothly seduce her.

The whole scene was pathetic, and the chants grew louder as more and more students began to leave.

Then, chaos ensued. Some sort of altercation broke out between a student and Trey Songz and his entourage, resulting in a scuffle that quickly moved the act off stage and outside of the Fieldhouse. Nearly every security guard working the event rushed out the back door.

Either way, the stage was left completely empty with no music playing, and remained that way for another 30 minutes.

At this point almost every student, fed up and angry with the entire situation, left the concert.

It was 10:50 p.m. by the time the Trey Songz scuffle was resolved, the sound system was fixed, and Lupe Fiasco took stage-a full three hours and 20 minutes after the concert began.

Most people simply do not enjoy concerts where the opening acts play for over three hours. Lupe must have been thrilled to come out and play in front of a less-than-half-filled Fieldhouse.

Lupe's performance was short but good, as he played most of his famous songs before leaving the stage. He was clearly the high point of the concert, but his act simply came too late.

Most of the students left the concert before he even came on, and the students walking out of the concert were grumbling angrily about the night's events.

It seemed as though nobody had a good time.

The other time I was particularly excited about the Spring Concert was my sophomore year when OAR was playing. After an uninspired performance, OAR's lead singer remarked that it had been a terrible show, with students fighting at a concert of primarily happy jam band music.

I left the concert frustrated that year, and this year was worse.

I am only happy that I am a senior and didn't have to pay for a ticket to such a poorly run event.