On Dec. 7. the University of New Haven’s live concert planning class hosted their Blizzard Bash concert to support Animal Haven Shelter. Held at 10selden, a live music venue in Woodbridge, Conn. The class spent the semester planning the concert.
According to the class professor, Jason Malli, students were in charge of finding the venue, choosing who to support, finding the bands, raising funds and creating all promotional material. Malli said the purpose of the assignment is to “prepare [students] for what they want to do in the music industry. The tough stuff, the behind-the-scenes, all that,” he said.
Local West Haven band No Rush! opened the show with a bang. The band is composed of four university students. They played a mixture of covers and original songs, which got the crowd dancing, cheering and even moshing.
They closed their act with their new release, “South,” a high-energy emotional song that was the perfect ending. Lead singer and guitarist, Hugh Gilroy, said he “had a blast. I like to think I’m the happiest person in the room. I did nothing but have fun with my friends and yell my lungs out.”
No Rush! drummer Matt Giammanco also said that the crowd was “absolutely amazing. [They] got into it, there’s nothing more a drummer could ask for.”
While band members said they will not be performing live again for a while, No Rush! thanked the audience for their support and encouraged listeners to continue supporting them and their new song.
Following No Rush! was the modern psychedelic group SCRT AGNT (“secret agent”). With active crowd interaction, intense singing and even getting the front row to do a kick line, SCRT AGNT made it clear that the party wasn’t over yet.
They also played a new release, “Emily,” which was released the day before Blizzard Bash. SCRT AGNT was a hit with the crowd and set the tone going into the second half of the show.
The two remaining bands were Shell Games and Cat Crash. Both are Connecticut alternative bands.Shell Games introduced a sound that made them stand out from the rest of the lineup, which proved why they consider their genre to be “whatever you want it to be music.”
Cat Crash as the show closer brought it home. Unique in style and passionate in sound, they ended with a bang that nicely wrapped up the concert. They continuously showed support to the other bands by dancing and moshing all throughout their sets and still never lost their energy when it came time to perform.
One student of the Live Concert Planning class, Zach Kinney, gave his thoughts on the experience. “Getting the opportunity to be on the executive end and put [a concert] together, it was really nice to throw myself into the music industry in a real scenario,” he said.
Kinney said that the class was able to break even, so all proceeds past that point were able to be donated to Animal Haven. By the end, the class raised over $766 for Animal Haven and deemed the concert a huge success.
