Quoted from: The Circle
By Andrew Overton
When Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) selected its new executive board for this academic year, one of its first goals was to bring a concert to the Mid-Hudson Civic Center. This year, it has accomplished that goal, and ViCE will be hosting the psychedelic giants The Flaming Lips at the Civic Center on Saturday, April 17. The concert will be open to the public.
“Most people were too expensive to be available,” ViCE Director Peter Denny told Vassar’s Miscellany News. “When The Flaming Lips gave us the offer, we were excited. They’re obviously a huge deal and have been around for a long time.”
The Flaming Lips are renowned for their ornate live shows and unique multi-layered, space-rock. The Grammy-award winners have been making music since 1986, but only reached commercial success in 1999 with “The Soft Bulletin” and its hit song “She Don’t Use Jelly.”
The Lips’ 2002 single, “Do You Realize??” has been featured in several television commercials, and in 2009 was named the official rock song of Oklahoma, the band’s home.
Last year was a busy one for the Lips. They released their twelfth LP, titled “Embryonic,” in October and in December released a complete remake of Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic, “The Dark Side of the Moon.”
Marist senior Dan Ashley was so excited about the announcement that he created a Facebook event and invited more than 200 Marist students.
“Clearly I am beyond excited,” Ashley said. “I think it is really a blessing since it is our final semester here at Marist, and I personally have always wanted to go to a Lips show.”
Senior Ben Thiefels has never heard The Flaming Lips’ music, but recognized the significance of the announcement.
“I think it’s great that a band as popular as the Flaming Lips worked with Vassar to put on a show that wouldn’t normally have been put on.”
According to the Miscellany News, this is the first time in recent memory that Vassar has collaborated with the Mid-Hudson Civic Center for an event. ViCe usually hosts its events on campus.
“The Civic Center has been great in accommodating our needs as a college,” ViCE music head Christine Yu said in an e-mail. “They were very willing and excited to work with us, and we both feel that Vassar should be utilizing this large space that is nicely located in the community.”
Yu, who is graduating in the spring, hopes that in the future ViCE “will continue to strive and put on bigger and better shows.”
“This definitely set the bar for what ViCE does in future years,” Yu said. “Every year, we try to do bigger and better things than what we’ve done in the past. This year, I think we’ve really succeeded, as this is the largest show in ViCE history!”
Fourteen hundred tickets will be sold to Vassar students at a discounted price. The remaining seats will go on sale for $35 on Monday, March 8, to the public at TicketWeb.com.
We are Vassar College Entertainment, but you can just call us ViCE. ViCE is a student-run organization that is responsible for bringing any and all forms of entertainment to campus, both small and large in scale. Throughout the year ViCE's seven committees work together to provide Vassar campus with weekly concerts, film screenings, comedy shows, dance parties, as well as major music concerts, all of which reflect the breadth and diversity of Vassar students’ entertainment interests. We both honor that diversity and strive to bring the community together. After all, ViCE is for everyone.
Design by Graph Paper Press
Subscribe to entries
Subscribe to comments
All content © 2012 by ViCE – Vassar College Entertainment
