This year's Spring Concert at Geneseo will feature two relatively recent arrivals to the music industry, Jack's Mannequin and Augustana.
Jack's Mannequin, an Orange County, California based piano rock group, is the two-year-old side project of Something Corporate's Andrew McMahon. Members include McMahon on vocals and piano, Bobby "Raw" Anderson on guitar and back up, Jonathon Sullivan on bass, and Jay McMillan on drums. The band's first album, Everything in Transit, includes such popular tracks as "Into the Airwaves" and "Holiday From Real." Jack's Mannequin has also released several non-album tracks either digitally or during promotions including the song "Last Straw."
Augustana was formed in California in 2004, and consists of five members: Dan Layus on piano, guitar and lead vocals, David Lamoureaux on keyboard and vocals, Jared Palomar on bass, keyboard and vocals, Chris Sachtleben on lead guitar and mandolin, and Justin South on drums. Several of Augustana's initial members first met in Greenville, Ill. and decided that a move to Los Angeles would provide more opportunities for success and growth as a group. Their first full album was the limited release Midwest Skies and Sleepless Mondays in 2003, which was then followed by an EP entitled Mayfield. The band's most recent production is All the Stars and Boulevards featuring the hit song "Boston," which has made it into the top 100 on several Billboard charts.
The Fall and Spring semester concerts are put on each year through the Activities Commission. According to Activities Commission Concert Coordinator Kristina Sym and Director of Student Programming Nick Guy, each year the performers are chosen based upon the results of online student surveys. For the Spring concert, these surveys take place in early fall so as to provide ample opportunity to investigate which bands might be available and to negotiate contracts with those that are interested. Though the bands listed on the surveys might not actually get booked, the choices students make provide a sense of what genres and types of performers would draw the greatest crowd of concertgoers at Geneseo; as a result, the Activities Commission can look into similar bands until it finds one that is suitable and within the school's budget. This fall, over 1000 Geneseo students answered the online survey, providing a great deal of information for the Activities Commission to use in their
efforts.
This year's Spring Concert decision was announced later than in previous semesters. Sym said that the delay was the result of long efforts to find performers that could be covered by the College's budget, coupled with several groups falling through during the contracting stages last semester. On top of these factors, Sym wanted to pick just the right combination of bands for a truly memorable performance, and to be able to announce both of her choices at the same time.
The Spring Concert will take place on Saturday, April 21 in the Kuhl Gymnasium. Tickets are currently on sale at the Student Association Ticket Office in the MacVittie College Union and cost $15 for students. General public tickets will go on sale Monday, March 5 at both the ticket office and on ticketmaster.com and will cost $22. Surveys for future concerts can be found at http://actcomm.geneseo.edu/ and more information about the Activities Commission, including upcoming events as well as ways for students to get involved, can be found at http://www.geneseo.edu/~sa/about.html.