One day when Franz Ferdinand is inducted into the Rock &
Roll Hall of Fame, the band will look back fondly on its first
shows in America. They’ll likely recall their humble
beginnings at New York’s Bowery Ballroom, Los Angeles’
own Troubadour and … the Coop? Thanks to UCLA’s Campus
Events Commission, this potential memory is a real possibility.
Operating out of 319 Kerckhoff Hall, the CEC oversees many of
the concerts on the UCLA campus. However, since a funding increase
for CEC was approved in the spring of 2003, the Commission’s
ambitions and on-campus clout have been raised even higher.
“Attendance at the shows we book has definitely gone up in
the past few years, in part due to the reinvigoration of the
Cooperage. It was a venue we hadn’t really taken advantage of
before,” said Jason Gaulton, the outgoing Campus Events
commissioner.
The CEC effectively used the Cooperage for the March 2004 Franz
Ferdinand show, which proved so popular that many of the hundreds
of students who showed up couldn’t get inside.
Beyond Franz Ferdinand, the CEC has recently booked some
breakthrough artists. During Fall Quarter, the CEC had current
buzz-band Bloc Party play in Bruin Plaza, and Spring Quarter has
been a musical bonanza, with CEC shows by the Roots (in partnership
with the Cultural Affairs Commission), the Walkmen and RJD2 within
days of each other.
“By booking shows that went over so well the past few
years, we built up a trust among students in that they expect
Campus Events to put on great concerts,” said Jennifer Wong,
the outgoing CEC concerts director.
Wong and Gaulton specifically mentioned shows like the Roots and
September 2003’s Bad Religion Welcome Week concert as
examples of positive progress.
“The Roots show was unlike anything I had ever
seen,” Wong said. “I have never seen Westwood Plaza
filled to capacity like it was for that concert. It was great to
see the amount of excitement and buzz generated by that
show.”
As another larger concert, the Bad Religion show was successful
not only because of its turnout but also because of the venue
““ the CEC pulled off a show in Pauley Pavilion, which many
had said could not be done.
The CEC’s continuing diversification in booking has been
another positive step for it. For example, a few weeks ago the CEC
had Buddy Wakefield doing spoken-word poetry in Westwood Plaza,
something less mainstream than the CEC would have booked just a few
years ago.
However, the commission does not necessarily think that its
booking choices have really gotten any more hip in the past few
years, as in the past it has booked bands like Yellowcard and Jimmy
Eat World before either broke out. Recent years have seen the
performances of such under-the-radar acts as Xiu Xiu and Broken
Social Scene. Rather, the renewed popularity of Campus Events
concerts seems to be a sign of a changing climate on campus.
“We feel that music has become the primary scene on campus
with the proliferation of iPods. Now that music gets more
attention, the concerts are more buzzworthy because so many more
people are aware of the artists,” Gaulton said.
Wong decided to book RJD2 after receiving some suggestions and
also after taking a breakdancing class. She realized that there was
a whole subculture of people at UCLA that the CEC wasn’t
taking advantage of, and a show by the instrumental hip-hop artist
would be a great way to capture this untapped niche.
In spite of the CEC’s success, though, things aren’t
always problem-free. The commission’s budget comes directly
from student fees and not from funding from the university,
limiting the potential to land every act. Both Wong and Gaulton
mentioned that working with publicists and booking agents was
trying, as agents sometimes think money is no object for an
organization based at a large university in Los Angeles.
Setbacks aside, the CEC’s increasingly diverse booking
stands to benefit all kinds of music fans on campus. While being
able to boast about “discovering” a band is great for
an organization’s reputation, it is not the CEC’s
primary focus.
“The first thing we’re concerned about is whether
we’re putting on a show that runs smoothly and a lot of
people will have a good time at,” Wong said.