Editorial Think outside the box

Author: Editorial Board

Middlebury professes to be a work hard/play hard liberal arts college, but students today are working harder and playing less. Complaints about everything from room draw to social life have reached new extremes. Maybe these issues call for complex and long-term solutions, but we believe there is a more simple, time-honored, constructive means for dealing with the stresses of College life - a good all-campus concert.

The Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB), the group explicitly charged with dispensing fun on campus, held its annual spring concert this past weekend. Guster was the headliner and The Format opened. The concert was part of Guster's "Campus Consciousness" tour and featured information and hands-on learning opportunities about creating a more sustainable way of living. Mellow music and green things on top - it seemed like a win-win combination for Middkids.

Why then did this concert have such a low student turnout rate? Why were students so seemingly unenthusiastic about Guster and the band's Campus Consciousness tour? To be sure, MCAB worked harder than ever before to involve the entire student body in making their decision. After two years of rap acts, there was a shared sense that a mellower gig might be in order. But last weekend's concert didn't seem to satisfy.

One problem was that Guster's genre of music is already pervasive on this campus. Middlebury counts Guster's musical cousins Dispatch as alums, and hosts near-weekly concerts in the Grille to showcase mellow, jam-band rock. Not to mention the fact that Guster's music is simply incapable of providing that wild, raucous energy that students desperately need to get out of their system before hunkering down for exams.

In MCAB's defense, had it gone with a rap act, there's no doubt that it would be the butt of complaints about the awkward claustrophobia of listening to heavy beats in a venue as strange as Kenyon Arena. One need only log on to Facebook.com to see pictures of spring weekends at our peer campuses.

Trinity College had a three day outdoor festival culminating in a TI concert on Sunday night. Brown University hosted RJD2 on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. With Middlebury's beaucolic campus, why can't there be a free, open concert out on Battell beach or in front of Mead Chapel or even behind Kenyon Arena? If it's possible in Hartford or Providence, shouldn't it be easier at Middlebury?

Finally, Middlebury boasts a number of talented student bands. We are lucky at Middlebury to have student acts that are, frankly, far more inspiring and fun than many of those shipped in from the real world, so why not celebrate them?

It doesn't look like there's time to bring in TI or RJD2 for a jam on Battell beach this year, but a battle of our own Middlebury bands wouldn't be too shabby. Just make sure it's outside (and before exams).