Sam Adams to perform at Venable Gym

On April 22, MCLA will host Sam Adams, an up-and-coming pop-rapper from Cambridge, Mass., for the annual spring concert.   The show will take place in Venable Gym. The rock-rap group Thick as Thieves will open for Sam Adams, and will go onstage at 8 p.m.  Sam Adams is expected to perform at 9 p.m.

Tickets to the concert will cost $5 for students and $7 for alumni, staff and faculty. However, ticket sales are not expected to cover the $20,000 artist fee paid by the Student Activities Council (SAC) to get Sam Adams to MCLA. After equipment and opener fees, the concert is going to cost SAC over $30,000 in total.

Previous performers for the spring concert include Wu-tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah and the band Quiet Drive.

Ghost Face preformed in the spring of 2009, and was attended by over 300 people. He arrived almost an hour late and only did a 40-minute set.

“The concert was stupid,” recalls MCLA alum Russell Murphy. “He was so late, and then they didn’t even turn the gym lights off for him. [Ghostface Killah] must have thought it was a joke too.”

Quiet Drive was part of a music festival that had three other bands in spring 2010.  It was attended by less than 50 people; a disappointment considering the band’s price tag was $10,000.

The decision to pick Sam Adams was the responsibility of the Students Activity Council as a whole. They conducted a survey on preferred music genre, which included about 300 students.  Hip-hop was the most chosen category, followed by rock.

“We wanted a famous name this year,” said Vanessa Leikvoll, a member of SAC.  “We were discouraged by last year’s low attendance, so we wanted to go big this time.”

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