The live music culture at the University of Portland doesn’t exactly favor the bold. CPB Coffeehouses offer tame, inoffensive study tunes, while the annual Rock the Bluff concerts embrace name recognition, commercial success, and (above all) mass appeal. However, for many of us, music propagates and resides in a certain beloved subculture that gets lost in the bland choices that have performed here in recent years. Sure, we loved last years’ Rock the Bluff artist, Boys Like Girls, in the era of multicolored iPod minis, but this might not be the music that speaks to UP students in 2013.
KDUP College Radio, the red-headed stepchild of Student Activities, has recruited a different type of beast to perform on campus this Friday in the Terrace Room for a concert entitled “A Supergalactic Evening.” The station hasn’t let its underdog status wilt into apathy, but instead has enlisted critically acclaimed psych-rock outfit Nurses and one of Willamette Week’s best new bands, Minden, to play alongside UP-student bands Secret Sauce and The Randy Jacksons. As a three-year veteran of the KDUP staff, I can say that this is going to be bigger than anything we’ve done in my time on The Bluff. But this isn’t the reason why you should join us on the dance floor on Friday.
You may have seen some scraggly rockers (Minden) on campus last week shooting a promo video for the show, or perhaps some KDUP staffers playing street team and putting up concert posters all over the city. You may have heard Nurses join select company on a recent Pitchfork playlist. Genuine excitement is building for those of us involved, and for good reason. For once, a campus concert is going to be all about the music. We didn’t have the budget to recruit a big-name band that we fawned over in middle school, but we do have a lineup of artists on the rise who are legitimately excited to play. If you’re the type that’d rather see the Terrace Room turn into the Roseland than meander the sparse crowds typical of other campus concerts, help us pack the house on Friday.
George Brockett is a senior chemistry major. He can be reached at brockett14@up.edu.
