At the beginning of each semester, when you unload your wallet of that $94.75 for a mandatory student activity fee, you hope come the end of that semester you can look back with a sense of satisfaction. You hope you can feel that your money went toward something you found worthwhile and meaningful.
The Student Association has made spending its money on concerts one of its highest priorities.
A musical performance can accomplish a multitude of things: It can enable people to congregate, it can trigger an emotional response from its recipients, it can stop you in your tracks, it can inspire. When it accomplishes these phenomena to a host of people at the same time in the same place, it lights a spark that sends forth ripples of spirit that can build a current that speaks to universal truths within the human soul.
It is the resonance of something deeply personal being shared with other people, that for a moment, can suspend time.
For SA to aspire to produce such experiences for its student body is a worthy objective. Given the climate of the undergraduate population regarding school-hosted concerts, however, this remains easier said than done.
There have been students to express disapproval with SA's choices for concerts and the lineups for Fall Fest and Spring Fest. With 19,000-plus students, not all are going to agree on the appeal of certain performing artists. That cannot be avoided. As some have proclaimed, "some people like chocolate, some like vanilla."
Well, in irregular fashion, SA altered its protocol and announced that it was hosting not just Spring Fest this semester, but a Bob Dylan concert as well.
Separate concerts. What a concept.
For those who were lucky enough to attend Friday night, they witnessed the live performance of a musical innovator and American icon. For many students, this was the manifestation of the expectation that SA will incorporate musicians that appeal to their taste - which may not be rap or hip-hop or house music.
The students who are keen on those genres will have the opportunity to indulge in a concert come Sunday for Spring Fest when Kendrick Lamar and Steve Aoki grace the UB campus for the annual event.
Because we are on a college campus and we value tolerance and diversity of belief, we don't want to say that one musical genre is superior to another. What we do want is for SA to consider the variety of people it represents when choosing who will perform at the musical events that are paid for by every undergraduate student on campus.
This year was a start; the SA e-board thought about chocolate and vanilla. This is a formula we want to see inserted into the process to affect the trajectory of how SA engages the community at large.
While we like this formula of separate concerts that appeal to different subjectivities and perspectives, we want to see adaptable diversity applied in the future. The dichotomy should not remain static. There shouldn't always be one show with an older musician and another with a newer musician. There shouldn't always be one show with a rock band and another with a rapper. There should be serious diversity.
Many students on campus like country, jazz, heavy metal, dubstep, electro punk, etc. Many students appreciate older musicians; many like younger ones. We want to see not just diversity in genre, but also diversity in the age of artists as well - those speaking to the times we are living in now and those who were speaking to a different time about themes that still relate to us now, like Bob Dylan.
The more SA works to incorporate the blend of student tastes, the more students will attend events and will have shared experiences - which is precisely what builds community.
The point is to really spread it out - because by providing depth to the list of musicians we bring to UB, we are recognizing the depth of our diversity, and that may be just the spark we need.
Email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
