Major concert, major success
Vine captivates audience with high energy
On Saturday, Feb. 15, Bryce Vine and Foreign Air performed in Shafer Auditorium for Allegheny students and the Meadville community as part of the major concert at Allegheny College.
The major concert occurs every two years at Allegheny and is sponsored by the Major Events Committee, which is comprised of GAP and ASG members.
“We sent out an initial survey to gather what genres students would be most interested in,” said ASG President Jason Ferrante, ’20. “We then worked with our agent to come up with a list of potential names and the committee selected from there with student feedback in mind.”
About 75 student volunteers, organized by MEC, started set up for the show at 9 a.m. with jobs including lighting and stage setup, dressing room and hospitality preparations, scanning tickets for entry right before the show, and tear down after the show.
Originally, GNAR was supposed to be the opening act for the show, but he cancelled about 10 days prior to the event.
“We received a note from our agent that GNAR cancelled,” Ferrante said. “MEC then worked quickly to find a replacement act.”
Foreign Air, an alternative indie-rock band, replaced GNAR and opened for Vine.
The band’s set included songs “Free Animal” and “Caffeine.”
While many students did not know of the band before the show, many left wanting to listen to more of their music, and even took selfies with lead singer Jesse Clasen.
“(Foreign Air) was great,” said Kira Yerofeev, ’20. “They really engaged with the Allegheny community. They also really had a 2010s CW intro to “Vampire Diaries” Season 3 vibe about them, which really brought me back to my childhood.”
After about a 20-minute intermission for a stage transition between the two acts, Vine opened his portion of the show by playing “On the Ball,” a pop song about having a good day and feeling on top of the world.
While this was Vine’s first time performing in Meadville, it wasn’t his first time coming into town.
“I’ve actually been backstage here before when I watched Hoodie Allen perform when I was on tour with him, but I didn’t play his show,” Vine said.
Throughout the show, Vine commented on the energy of the crowd and how excited he was to be playing for students.
“I like being able to be a way for you guys to relieve some stress for your school year — I know how that is,” Vine said.
Vine was very interactive with the crowd, including call and responses between him and the audience and sharing the microphone with some fans.
Yerofeev was one of the few people who helped sing a song with Vine.
“It was really awesome, and even though this was probably a smaller venue than he is used to performing, he still brought the energy,” Yerofeev said.
According to Ferrante, this year’s major concert out sold the previous one, BJ the Chicago Kid and Aaron Carter in 2018, selling 550 tickets.
“We were pleased to see an engaged student body, not only through the voting process, but also in buying tickets and getting excited for the concert. We were thrilled with the turnout and even more happy with how the students engaged with the performers,” Ferrante said.
Vine ended the show with a three-song encore which included “Sour Patch Kids,” “Guilty Pleasure” and “Drew Barrymore,” his most popular hit with over 175 million plays on Spotify.
“So many things have happened (this year) that I hadn’t experienced even two years ago,” Vine said. “My first full length album, … selling out The Fonda Theatre, which is pretty iconic in my hometown (Los Angeles), my whole tour was sold out.”
Vine said that he remembers days when he performed on “cardboard boxes” at schools where the crowd didn’t even know who he was. He called it a “crazy transition” from that point of his life to his career today.
He said one of his most memorable experiences in the past year was appearing on The Kelly Clarkson Show, where he checked something off his bucket list.
“We did Kelly Clarkson’s show, and she surprised me with having Drew Barrymore on the screen saying that she loved my song (‘Drew Barrymore’) and stuff like that, cause I had never heard from her about the song,” Vine said. “And that’s always an interview question.”
During interviews, the star frequently gets asked if he’s heard from Drew Barrymore about the hit song.
“I’m like, ‘not lately,’ and I finally (heard from her) on that show — super cool.”
