“It’s like a big first date,” lead vocalist and keyboardist Sean Scanlon of Smallpools said. The headliner had asked the crowd in-between songs how many people had never seen the band in concert before. A large portion of the crowd shot their hands up in response.
Seattle University held their annual Quadstock on Saturday, May 19. The day was split into two parts: a day time event with a collection of performers held by KXSU—Seattle U’s student run radio station—in the Quad from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and a night concert on the Student Events and Activities Council (SEAC) stage in the Redhawk Center starting at 6 p.m.
The headliner of the SEAC stage drew a large crowd of students at the Redhawk Center where the opening bands, Half the Animal and Great Good Fine OK played. The night portion of the event was held in the North Court and the space was transformed into a world of neon colors and glowing backlights. These decorations were fitting to this year’s theme—Electriquadstock. The opener was Battle of the Bands winner, Griffin Leemon.
Second-year student, Casey Fedmey attended Quadstock for the first time this year. She remembered being near the front when Smallpools was performing. People around her were screaming with excitement, especially when the performers came near the crowd.
“He like came and jumped out right in front, there’s like little steps up there and he was really close,” Fedmey said.
The large turnout of students throughout Seattle U’s undergraduate class seemed to create a sense of comradery and school spirit to this particular event. While the band Great Good Fine OK was in-between songs, a voice yelled out from the crowd, “Go Redhawks!” In response, several students started to raise their hands up to form a bird sign with their hands crossed.
“Let me see those Redhawks,” lead vocalist Jon Sandler shouted from the stage.
Community was a prominent takeaway for first-year students Grace Marston, Grace Poe and Megan Thornton. The group of friends was excited to come to their first ever Quadstock. They mentioned how long they had been looking forward to this concert as a pinnacle of the school’s social events.
“I feel like it’s the most advertised event at tours and stuff,” Marston said. They all nodded in agreement, “At tours we all remember them being like you should go to Quadstock!” Poe said.
During the day, the KXSU team set up a stage facing south towards an array of booths from a variety of Seattle U clubs and local vendors. Some of the clubs that had held booths were Redzone, Dance Marathon, URec, ArtSideOut and many others. Vi Hilbert Hall had a table with information pamphlets and candies as well. Most tables had a variety of Seattle U swag, snacks, and other promotional items.
KXSU 102.1 FM hosted the day long portion of Quadstock by bringing in five different performers. The first performer was first-year student Karsten Kohout going by the name of DJ Khost, mixing different popular songs. He performed in Battle of the Bands and finished as the first runner up. As the first performer, a large group of students wearing KXSU shirts danced along with the music and loudly cheered to the electronic sound.
The next performer was Maiah Wynne. She recently received second place in the Sound Off! 2018 contest and wowed the crowds with her indie-folk music. The band Cosmos played in the mid-afternoon. They are locally based and encouraged listeners to get on their feet and dance with the music. Flip Phone also performed on the KXSU stage, playing songs with a funk influence and style in the day’s warm sunny weather.
The last performance of the day and headlining act of the KXSU portion of Quadstock was Taylar Elizza Beth. Her music was especially unique and caught several people’s attention from just passing by the event. The liveliness from her performance lifted up the crowd’s energy and there was a lot of dancing and movement to the music.
“My music is especially for queer people, especially women, trans women included. It’s for us. It’s for the people who haven’t gotten anything yet,” Taylar Elizza Beth said.
She not only performs music but does visual art, and has experience in theatre as well reaching several different mediums of expression.
The performers of Quadstock represented an extremely broad variety of music tastes and styles to appeal to the larger Seattle U student body.
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