Spring Concert Faceoff: Were Single File and Danger Radio worth staying for?

NO

The night of April 16 was supposed to be very memorable because it was the night of the spring concert. My roommate and I each had a guest come up from our hometown and the four of us spent about two hours listening to music by Plain White T’s to get us pumped for the band that we all loved. When it was 6:30 p.m., we decided to go get in line outside of the SRC. An hour later, we were still waiting, hoping that like all other concerts, the band was just running a little late. That’s when we found out the lead singer of Plain White T’s was sick and the band would not be performing. After some consideration, we all decided not to stay for the two opening acts, Single File and Danger Radio, because for us, the spring concert was ruined before it even began.
Even though Plain White T’s is not the most well-known band, it has released several albums and has had multiple hits, such as “Hey There Delilah,” “Our Time Now” and “1, 2, 3, 4.” These were some of our favorite songs, and even though I had all of the songs on my iTunes, my friends and I were so excited to hear the songs performed live. When we found out that we wouldn’t be hearing them, we were disappointed and said that at least we could hear Plain White T’s on my computer.
Up until that day, none of us had heard of either of the opening acts, so we had no idea what kind of music they would play. We didn’t want to stay if we wouldn’t like the music. At least with Plain White T’s, we knew what kind of music to expect and that we already liked what they had to play. Also, a concert isn’t as much fun when you can’t sing along with the band. Because we didn’t know either of the groups, we didn’t know the lyrics to their songs, so instead of jumping around and singing along, the four of us probably would have been standing together in an awkward circle, just sort of bobbing our heads along to the beat that we may or may not have liked. To us, this didn’t sound like the way that we wanted to spend our Thursday night.
Having Plain White T’s perform at Rider would have been the highlight of our spring semester. But we were disappointed that the band would not be playing. For us, the spring concert would just not be as fun without something to really look forward to. After the two opening acts played, that would be it. There would be no big finale, and that is definitely something to anticipate when attending a concert.
Even though we didn’t pay any money to see this concert, and our guests paid only $5, we just did not see the concert as being worth attending without a performance by Plain White T’s. I’m sure that both bands were good, but for my friends and me, neither group was “plain” enough.

Angelique is a freshman elementary education and journalism major.