Monday, June 15, 1998
Westwood Plaza, Cooperage concerts lose appeal to students
ON-CAMPUS: Despite decreased turnout, bands appreciate
opportunities to perform
By Danielle Myer
Daily Bruin Contributor
The Westwood Plaza concerts once thrived, with acts including
Live and the Roots gracing the stage and attracting modest crowds.
Recently, the Westwood Plaza concerts are suffering from a lack of
strong student support.
Sprinkled throughout the noon hours of the week, the concerts
transform the small, brick Westwood Plaza outside Ackerman Union
with sounds ranging from obscure garage bands to radio staples.
There’s one problem, however. Only a handful of the 35,000
students at UCLA actually approach the stage area to listen to the
whole show. According to some students, lack of publicity is the
main reason the concerts are not as crowded as they could be.
"There used to be a lot more people hanging around," Mike
Cooperman, a fourth-year physiological science student who has seen
four years of concerts, says. "It seems like people aren’t really
interested now. A lot more (people) would show up if there was
bigger publicity."
Campus Events, the student group who produces the Westwood
concerts, has noticed the problem of publicity and attendance
hitting other, smaller concert venues. One such event is the
Cooperage Series, which ended this spring due to lack of student
interest.
"The Cooperage concerts used to be really big for the
independent, indie artists," says Dean Cheley, director of free
concerts. "Indie music is taking a break and been replaced by
electronic type, hip-hop music."
Campus Events books the noon concerts to expose the UCLA
community to a diverse group of entertainers, according to Cheley.
Acts like No Doubt (in 1989) and Sublime (in 1995) have all
participated in the UCLA concerts, making the Westwood Plaza
concert series a pleasant diversion on campus.
Though the Campus Events staff passes out flyers and makes
posters to advertise the shows, many students are missing out on
the concerts because they don’t know with whom or when the concerts
are playing. Events staff and ASUCLA allot more time and money to
the bigger bands seen on campus, like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (who
performed early last fall), so publicity for those shows is
considerably greater.
While all acts receive publicity through flyers and word of
mouth, the bigger bands draw larger crowds simply because students
recognize the name. With many other alternatives available on
campus, poor publicity relegates bands to the whims of the
students.
One band hit by student apathy is Fredalba, a local grassroots
blues band playing last Wednesday on the Westwood Plaza stage.
"People don’t know the bands," Mike Gadow, a second-year
undeclared student, says as he watches Fredalba from the Ackerman
steps. "If I can make it, I’m going, but I’m not going to break my
neck."
While bands performed more publicized and well-attended concerts
in the past two weeks (like Ozomatli’s May 27 show), this year’s
Westwood Plaza concert series has not been as well-noticed by the
student body as in past years. Rufus Kings, Overground and the
KROQ-sponsored Wank show fell by the wayside this year.
"It’s usually kind of dead around here during the shows,"
Fredalba’s drummer Alfredo Malatesta, a second-year student
double-majoring in history and international relations, says.
Fredalba is one student band which took the opportunity to
perform on campus and receive publicity, no matter how sparse the
turnout.
While Malatesta acknowledges that performing for a small crowd
is challenging, he appreciates the chance to publicize his band,
which usually plays clubs. "This was just a good test for us to say
‘we’re here,’" he says.
A shrinking audience limits the chance for local and student
bands to expand their fanbase.
As students lost interest in the Westwood and Cooperage
concerts, Campus Events implemented the use of smaller venues for
students to watch bands play. Most notable is a new series of jazz
and folk quartets and vocalists in Kerckhoff Coffee House every
Wednesday from 8 to 10 p.m.
"The (Kerckhoff) concerts give students and faculty who are in
the jazz department a chance to perform," Cheley says.
With the popularity of the plaza shows dwindling and many
students opting to watch the unsponsored live DJ and electronic set
just up Bruin Walk near Taco Bell, where does the future of the
Westwood Village Plaza concerts lie? With so many events happening
concurrently, the crowds are largely divided.
Although the numbers don’t seem overwhelmingly large, there are
still fans who appreciate the live shows as they perch on the steps
of Ackerman Union.
"It gets students excited about being on campus," Cheley says.
"The student campus scene – you see people who walk by and get a
flyer and they get really excited to see a band (like the
Alkoholiks) coming to their campus. It’s a really personal
experience and sometimes even gives the students a chance to meet
the bands."
While allowing students to become more involved in campus life,
the concerts also help new bands just starting out to gain a
university student following. Acts like the Hippos and Rufus King,
which both played this year, could be the next generation of Top 40
bands, and UCLA students will have had the chance to see them
before they start playing to larger and more mainstream crowds.
"(This was a) good way for people to get to know us," Eric
Balfour, lead singer of Fredalba, says. "We got full pages of
mailing lists from people who just passed through and liked what
they heard."
Regardless of the smaller crowds, the bands appreciate the
chance to work in a college atmosphere, rather than an indoor
club.
"It’s more fun (outdoors)," Balfour says. "I’m singing, and the
wind starts blowin, and I’m like ‘Oh, this is what it’s all
about.’"