Sixteen years ago organizers put together Bandfest on a $400 budget and held the event in an open field near Longwood's campus. For this year's event, the budget and planning have grown considerably, making Bandfest the Friday highlight of Spring Weekend. With Reel Big Fish and Against Me headlining, organizers are hoping for a large turnout.
Bandfest 2009 will be Friday, April 17, starting at 5 p.m. behind Lankford Student Union. Planning for the event began early last semester. Junior Erin Weyen and sophomore Amy Jackson, Bandfest co-chairs, are responsible for putting on this year's show. "We went through a process of getting a committee together . back in October," said Jackson. Starting late last semester, Weyen said, the committee has "been working on getting our big headline bands, and then from there we move on to the smaller bands." In addition to booking bands, the committee has been planning for stage setup, security, band hospitality, scheduling and a variety of other logistical issues for the evening.
With Bandfest's 16th anniversary, this year's theme will be "Radioactive Sweet Sixteen." Sophomore Matt Tewksbury, publicity chair for campus radio station WMLU, said the theme was selected to be "something fun and having to do with the 16th anniversary. Radio is not dead, it's radio-active."
Past Bandfest headliners have included The Fray, Regina Spektor, Cartel and Yellow Card, but, Jackson said, "Every year we try to one-up the previous year. Reel Big Fish is a ska band from Huntington Beach, Calif. Formed in 1992, the six-member band includes trumpet and trombone players, in addition to the traditional guitars, drums and keyboard. The band released its latest album, "Fame, Fortune and Fornication," in January 2009. The band also played in Warped Tour 2008 and will be playing at several other colleges across the country in the coming months.
Against Me!, a punk band from Naples, Fla., is the second headlining band. Since the four-member band formed in 1997 they have released four CDs, most recently in 2007. In May 2008, the band was named "Best Punk Band" by "Rolling Stone" magazine, and they will take the stage at Longwood in the late evening.
As the winner of Battle of the Bands at last semester's Oktoberfest, Longwood junior Jackie Stem will be Bandfest's first performer. In addition to winning Battle of the Bands, Stem has also released a CD and has performed at Farmville's Mad Hatter. Other bands include the Legendary Shack Shakers, a self-proclaimed rock/country/blues group from Nashville, Tenn., and Spit Hot Fire, a reggae band from New York.
"We've got a lot of different kinds of music . kind of mellow, and then build up as the night goes on," said Jackson. "We conscientiously planned it like that."
To get the word out about Bandfest and the bands playing, Tewksbury and WMLU are planning to use a variety of methods. "I'm working on publicity up until the day of the event," said Tewksbury. "There will be lots of fliers, we will have our remotes committee playing music from the bands . we'll be giving away T-shirts." However, he added, "I think word of mouth is our biggest ally."
On the day of the event, Jackson and Weyen said, there will be an organized chaos in running the event. "The subcommittees have their responsibilities, and we're kind of overseeing everything they do," Jackson said. "There's the backstage stuff, the hospitality kind of things for the bands, and there's remotes and games, so there should be entertainment on all different fronts."
While an official schedule has not yet been released, Weyen and Jackson hope to finalize the performance times and release a schedule within the next week. No matter what the final performance order, the organizers are looking forward to a successful event. Jackson said, "It's going to be such a high-energy show, all kinds of music that everyone can appreciate. And I'm excited to see the turnout."
Weyen added, "We chose these bands to be something everyone can enjoy, and I want this to be a thing where people come out and say, "Wow, that was so good, I can't wait to see what they have next year.' That is our ultimate goal.
