An all-campus email today reveals that hired security personnel, pat-down procedure, strict reentry ban, and, um—oh yeah—the gender binary we all hate will all be involved in keeping you safe at tomorrow night’s already controversial Matisyahu/Chiddy Bang show. “That’s So Wesleyan” Moment of the Day: at least they’re apologizing for getting all heteronormative on our asses:
[Translation: suck it up, genderqueer folk?]Pat down lines will be implemented as a security precaution. These lines will be executed in the gender binary. We understand that some students may not feel that one of the two most common gender pronouns may apply to them, but we ask that those students choose to enter whichever line they feel most comfortable in.
Unprecedented? Not quite. The last time administrative security of this scale was involved in a non-Spring Fling concert was in December 2008, when Girl Talk played the Bacon Field House to decidedly mixed reactions. Upperclassmen have already noted the parallels Matisyahu/Girl Talk beg, at least in terms of venue (how will the ice rink compare to the Field House?), security, and general logistics. The gender-segregated security pat-down was also an issue in ’08 (scroll for details/bitching). Is it an accurate comparison? Click here for Sheek‘s overview of that concert and its ensuing shitshow:
The first song was a shitshow – the front of the crowd rushed the stage as soon as the music started. A violent mosh pit formed on the platform, with everyone trying to either shove their way past each other to grab pieces of Gillis, maintain their balance, or avoid being trampled. This threatened the sound equipment (not to mention the people onstage), and the music stopped while everyone was kicked off stage by security.
No, I’m not suggesting Matisyahu/Chiddy Bang will resemble this in terms of audience experience. It definitely won’t. It’ll probably be fine. (Note that Gregg Gillis’s contract requires that audience members be allowed on stage, and his stage persona seems to encourage that sort of audience mayhem. Who the hell moshes to Matisyahu anyway?) But still, the writeup offers some hints on how to be civil (and how to be an inconsiderate jerk) at a massive-scale concert intended for campus-wide enjoyment. This has nothing to do with anyone’s opinion of its planning: Matisyahu is one such event. Heed them—enjoy tomorrow night.
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Special Bonus Feature: more disgruntled reactions to Girl Talk, compiled from this comment stream, this ACB thread, and this Wespeak. Enjoy?
- That crowd contained, by far, the greatest number of stumbling-drunk people I’ve ever seen in one place at one time. In any case, I’d say it was worth the $5, and the contribution to Financial Aid was a huge plus.
- it was a really bad idea to separate everyone into “man” and “woman” lines in order to be patted down by security officers. i get that the security might have been necessary, but way to assume that there are no queer people and no one who identifies as neither male or female. come on wesleyan.
- so it was an hour of a guy playing songs on his laptop? and people pay to see that? wtf am i doing in college?!
- “Colossally overrated”? No, the show was not overrated at all. Nearly everyone I talked to who was there thought it sucked. No one is saying particularly good things about it.
- for real, i would have loved to be felt up by a woman, but no, it had to be a man. what is this is segregation?
- Also, I heard one of the security guard threaten to kill some guy that was trying to get on stage. Kinda scary.
- NEWS FLASH WESLEYAN: climbing onto the stage and dancing does not make you cool. it makes you a drunk starstruck idiot. do you think the sweaty dude focusing intently on his computer so he can produce a clean and precisely timed live set wants wasted college students flailing wildly in the vicinity of thousands of dollars worth of sound equipment? please ask yourselves why you do this. is it so you can plaster pictures all over facebook and tell your friends that you were on stage with girl talk omg!!?? do you think that if you get close enough to him that maybe, just maybe, you’ll acquire some of his talent via osmosis? do you truly gain pleasure from exhibiting yourself in all your inebriated hipster glory? Next time you feel the impulse to uninvitedly invade the space of an artist presenting hir work, spare us all. You are an embarrassment to yourself and painful to watch.
As an ’09 graduate, very involved in the music scene….this Matisyahu/Chiddy Bang shit is exactly like what went down with Girl Talk. We had book Crystal Castles ($3k) and Passion Pit ($1,500) and applied for funding, and was told it was not going to happen because their was a competing secret event. Well, it was later discovered the head of the SBC was planning the show with money he controlled. The whole thing was a disaster.
the fact that odd future could’ve come here the night after his fallon performance for less than a tenth of what this show costs indicates the state of the music scene here right now
Fucking TRUTH.
Seriously, we could have seen them for $3,000.
Three thousand!
Fuck.
No. $4k and half of current fans wouldn’t have had any idea who they were at the time of their booking. Seriously, get over it.
The Crystal Castles/Passion Pit show didn’t happen because the bands couldn’t make it work with their schedules. Get your facts right.
Mess with their gender binary and throw yourself into the “wrong” line. Alternatively, go see Bridesmaids. You won’t have more fun laughing at a bad movie this week (although Unstoppable also looks hysterically awful).