“You can take my heart, but you’ll never take my soul. You can take my rock, but you’ll never take my roll.”
A well put free-style by O.A.R. lead singer and guitarist Marc Roberge topped off Thursday’s concert; culminating as a roaring success.
The opening band, Gomez, was with O.A.R. for its entire winter arena tour (which ended the Saturday after our concert, with a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden). In Europe, Gomez is just as popular as the Strokes and on Thursday O.A.R.’s FU fans got a good taste of why. They walked on stage in front of a crowd of strangers and left the stage as their new fans cheered their name.
As promised, O.A.R.’s set list was a mixture of old, new and newer-than-new; songs whose sounds rippled through Alumni Hall. Crowd surfers, dancers, singers and even public safety officers were enveloped with the sounds of acoustic guitar and saxophone.
The relaxed aura, common to many of O.A.R.’s songs, was morphed into a flurry of upbeat songs inciting crowd surfing among fans.
Early on in the concert, fans were advised by Roberge to “do [him] a favor and stop crowd surfing. Stay on the ground and meet someone new. I mean you have a better chance of getting laid tonight if you don’t kick the person in the head … Unless you’re under 18 and in that case, watch a movie.”
Unfortunately crowd surfing was not the only disruption fans encountered. Austin Ayers ’07 was disappointed with irresponsible attendees.
“What bothered me was that the whole entire concert [crowd] was a bunch of high schoolers,” he said. “Everyone was pushy and I got escorted out because of a high schooler’s false accusation.”
“Something Coming Over,” a brand new song not released on any CD, seemed to be a crowd favorite. A handful of songs from their new CD and a majority of older songs kept the crowd screaming for more after “Hey Girl” concluded the main concert.
It took the group only minutes to return to the stage with artist, friend and Fairfield Prep alum Stephen Kellogg. Roberge and Kellogg pleasantly surprised the crowd with “Big Easy,” followed by one of O.A.R. fans’ favorite songs, “Love and Memories.”
Kaitlyn Buckheit ’09 felt that the concert was “a great combination of songs that everyone liked. They didn’t play too many new songs and their encore was awesome.”
“I think the concert was a great success. O.A.R. played a great set and everyone seemed to really enjoy the show,” said FUSA programming director Cristina Pires ’08. “It was great to see Alumni Hall packed with students all having a good time.”
Between the singing along and cheering, the enthused crowd began the chant “We want Poker,” resulting in a quick change of plans by the band and a pleasing version of “That Was A Crazy Game of Poker.”
Whether O.A.R.’s music prompted you to an amazing evening or you left Alumni escorted by public safety, most would agree that the concert rocked harder than anything Dashboard Confessional, last year’s act, has done on this campus.
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