Lucky for all of us this finals week is a lot more like a transatlantic flight. It’s long and arduous, the air feels different, and you wish you could be moving your legs more often. You’ll probably spend the whole time wishing for it to end, but what can you do except buckle in, put on some music, and hope you’re sitting next to someone you like, or at least, someone who will leave their shoes on? And remember, at the end of this time you spend being held captive in Lau while having anxiety dreams in which you are chased by a gang of blood-thirsty blue books, something beautiful awaits you: your final destination. Which, if statistics prove to be correct, is most likely New Jersey.

- Tiare Dunlap, host of Osmosis Tuesdays 9-11pm

Yesterday in Red Square, I walked up to a stranger with a huge, furry beard who was wearing a huge, furry Elmer Fudd hat and said, “You must be Englishman.”

Normally this might have been rude, or at least a little weird, as a) I hadn’t heard him speak and thus had no way of discerning his nationality from a linguistic standpoint, and b) I had never met him before in my life. Fortunately, this man smiled at me, extended his hand and said, “yes, I am.”

Englishman, song-vehicle for Lexington, KY native Andrew English (Vocals/Guitar) and Matt Duncan (Keyboard/Vocals) then proceeded to the Copley Formal Lounge and Jesuit graveyard where they performed two stripped-down songs off their new self-titled album. It must have been the ten snowy days spent recording on a farm in rural Ohio that prepared them for these austere, wintry venues but, despite the cold, English and Duncan’s rendition of “Classically Trained” transformed the Lounge into a cozy haven from the chill December wind, and even the frigid graveyard felt inviting, as English described the sky as a “layer cake” in his buttery, James Taylor-esque voice in “Boy T-Rex.”

After the show, Englishman packed their bags and headed up north to Pennsylvania to continue their winter tour, but they promised to return to campus when Persephone gets back from Turks and Caicos. In the meantime, if the impending snowpocalypse part deux has got you down, bundle up, grab some peppermint hot chocolate, and enjoy your own personal concert away from the cold and exam-ridden outside world.

Camera & Edits: Tiare Dunlap and Emma Forster

- Tiare Dunlap, host of Osmosis, Tuesdays 9-11pm on WGTB

After watching the reenactment you may be wondering how to spend your Columbus Day. Click through for our Columbus Day playlist, and please think of it as a narrative to guide your reflection on what you have just seen.

Leave us your best ideas on how to connect the dots of this narrative in the comments!

Acting: Igor German
Filming: Tiare Dunlap
Editing: Catherine DeGennaro and Tiare Dunlap
Playlisting: Tiare Dunlap

What do you do when an irate audience member screams “F#@%k Indie Rock!!!” in the middle of your show? If you’re Surfer Blood, you thank him kindly, finish a heartfelt and energetic set, and follow it up with a brilliant (albeit unsolicited) encore.

In a day and age when too many bands are content to let their cardigans and wayfarers do the talking, it sure is good to know that there are still some artists more concerned with putting on a show than trying to look nonchalant. When it comes to showmanship, openers The Drums didn’t really set a bar so much as they did a pinnacle. Frontman Jonathan Pierce’s performance was nothing short of revelatory. Possessing the androgyny of a Ziggy-era David Bowie, the strut of Mick Jagger in his prime, and the overall theatrical prowess of a virginal Madonna, Pierce was more than a frontman- he was a surrealist vision. Pierce and his band mates surged through tracks ‘Make You Mine’ and ‘Book Stories’ with such fervor it was difficult to blink.

Next Surfer Blood took the stage, accompanied by the palpable void left by Pierce’s wild gesticulating and marching. Opening with ‘Fast Jabroni’ it was clear that the theatrics of The Drums had even made an impression on Surfer Blood frontman John Paul Pitts, who had picked up some outlandish moves of his own. Though a very different scene from the kabuki theater of The Drums, the dedication of Surfer Blood’s performance brought a new depth to their Floridian College Indie Pop (which has been less than affectionately labeled the genre of alt-bro-pop), showing that band members had done more than discover the elusive formula of addictive buoyant distorted pop.

Though much has been said about their inexperience (they formed as Freshmen at University of Florida just last year), it is their dissimilarity which creates their distinctively multi-faceted performance.  If they’re putting out material as critically acclaimed as Astro Coast while still pursuing cohesion, surely there is much more to come from these baby-faced virtuosos. The boys gave gave it their all, playing everything in their repertoire, in addition to a couple in-the-works tracks. As their aforementioned encore, they took ‘Slow Jabroni’ to its limits. Though it was self-consciously prefaced by Pitts’ comment that “this one’s really hard to play live”, their sincerity and focus made it the best song they played all night.

–Tiare Dunlap