Cake to play spring concert

Author: Scott Greene

The Concert Committee of the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) announced over the weekend that alternative rock group Cake will headline its Spring Concert on April 19 at Chip Kenyon '85 Arena, a performance which will mark the band's first trip to the East Coast since 2006. Seeking to appeal to a broad range of student interests across campus, MCAB's decision reflects the committee's year-long desire to provide students with a diverse lineup of shows, a lineup which has already included Regina Spektor and Girl Talk.

"Deciding on a concert is a long strenuous process and in the end we decided that Cake would be the best show here at Middlebury," Concert Committee co-chair Bill Zrike '09 said. "Cake was hands-down our first choice."

MCAB made great efforts to balance a wide scope of student interest in selecting Cake, the only group to which it made an offer. It invited students to voice their preference for the concert on Jan. 28 in an online poll to give the committee a general idea of what type of music students most desired to hear in April.

The results of the poll indicated a "real desire" for a rock band to perform in the concert, according to Sam Morrill '08, the Concert Committee's other co-chair. Morrill noted that the committee felt that Cake has a broad appeal across campus and would be well received by almost everyone, as opposed to last year's performance by Guster.

"I think that many people felt that Guster was a somewhat polarizing choice for the Spring Concert last year," he said. "In other words, some people love Guster while others really don't like them. With that in mind, we really wanted to bring a more unifying band to Middlebury."

Zrike added that since West Coast-based Cake rarely comes to the northeastern United States, the unique opportunity for students to see them perform played a large role in the decision, as did MCAB's wish to provide students with a different concert than in the recent past.

"I think Cake is different from past shows like J5, Wyclef and Guster," he said. "It is a different genre and offers a new style of music that the student body has not seen in the last five years. That is our goal as MCAB - we try to give the students a little bit of everything to try and satisfy as many people as possible."

The selection process also reflected the fruits of last year's merger between MCAB and the Inter-commons Council (ICC) under the umbrella name of MCAB. The merger allows groups such as MCAB, ICC and the College's radio station, WRMC 91.1 FM, to collaborate in an unprecedented way as part of a campus-wide music consortium. The sweeping changes saw a more diverse group of students sitting on MCAB's Concert Committee, which in turn allowed for more diverse student participation in the programming process.

"Truly everyone has input on the committee," said Knef King '08, a member of both the WRMC Executive Board and the Concert Committee. "Everybody has its varying tastes on the committee, from hip-hop to Toby Keith."

More importantly, however, last year's merger allowed the groups to consolidate funding reserves for the various other concerts held throughout the year, including WRMC's Sepomena and the spring festival Midd Mayhem. According to King, the new funding process leaves the music consortium with a lot of options for the rest of the year. It will specifically be a boon for WRMC, which will have much more money than in the past.

"People have complained about the bands WRMC has brought in before, but there weren't many other options with the budget we've had in the past," King said. So, the prospects are exciting both for WRMC getting more money and for collaboration to happen on the board. Having one huge Committee really makes things work, because we can plan out our spring together."

King added that the committee felt like it could get more of a consensus behind a Cake performance. It did not know until last Friday, Feb. 22, that the offer would be accepted. According to King, a big part of Cake's acceptance of MCAB's offer depended on whether or not they would be coming east to also perform in Providence, R.I. around the same time.

The money saved by bringing in Cake over more expensive bands will allow the committee to add another act to its spring festival in May, though King declined to reveal what bands were being considered for either Midd Mayhem or WRMC's Sepomena. Zrike agreed that the new budget gives the groups much more flexibility.

"I am in favor of this larger budget because it gives both MCAB and WRMC the possibility to put on more concerts than in previous years," he said. "This combined budget gives us the possibility to put on more smaller shows in the Gifford Annex, Pearsons Lounge, Coltrane, etc., as well as put on shows of larger magnitude like in Nelson, Pepin and Kenyon."

Cake, based in Sacaremento, Calif., is best known for two mid-90's albums, Fashion Nugget in 1996 and Prolonging the Magic in 1998, which produced the hit singles "The Distance" and "Never there," as well as a cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." Though it is often classified as alternative rock or indie rock, Cake's music combines multiple other music genres, including pop, funk, rap and even country.

The Concert Committee has yet to determine who will open for Cake on April 19, but Morrill is nonetheless thrilled about the potential for this year's Spring Concert.

"Personally, I'm more excited for Cake than I've ever been for any of the other Kenyon shows," he said.