Every year, the Office of Student Engagement hosts a Welcome Back Concert for students of the John Carroll community to gather and have fun before the start of the school year. Every summer, an email is sent out to the student body containing a list of artists they could vote on and then the artist with the most votes is booked for the concert. However, this year didn’t seem to go as planned.
The voting form for this year contained artists such as Natasha Bedingfield, Neon Trees, Yung Gravy and Dayglow. On the social media platform YikYak, an overwhelming number of anonymous users from the John Carroll community voiced their opinions about the voting list, showing a preference for either Natasha Bedingfield or Neon Trees. When the Office of Student Engagement revealed on Instagram who was performing, students on campus were displeased and, frankly, confused. The announcement revealed that rapper BigXthaPlug would be the artist making an appearance on campus. Not only was BigxthaPlug not on the list of options that were offered to the student body, but the concert was moved back to Saturday, Sept. 13, instead of the first Saturday back on campus, turning what was meant to be a warm “welcome back!” to campus into more of a, “Oh I guess you’re still here, so while you’re at it, attend another campus thing!” kind of event.
Nevertheless, the decision was made on JCUs part with positive intentions to collaborate with the grand opening of the AWE Center. In theory, the idea made sense and the thought of having an indoor concert in the new space sounded worthwhile. But in execution, the plan proved to be faulty as the concert had to be moved back outside to the Hamlin Quad due to technical issues with the development of the AWE Center.
In the midst of all this, there were concerns about whether BigXthaPlug would even make an appearance at the concert, following the news of the rapper’s arrest in Dallas, Texas on August 22. Despite all the difficulties that ensued within the planning of this concert, JCU still persisted with facilitating the event. However, when the big day arrived, it came to no one’s surprise that there would be even more technical difficulties.
One of the main things wrong with the concert was that it only ended up lasting an hour. The reason why this was an issue is due to the fact that Welcome Back Concerts at John Carroll are historically known to last an average of two hours. Moreover, the doors ‘opened’ at 8:00 p.m. but the concert did not start until 9:00 p.m.. At that point, a DJ opened for the show, but BigXthaPlug didn’t make an appearance onstage until around 9:20-9:30 p.m..
Even in moments where the concept of a show was loosely going on, many witnessed the audio cutting in and out, and BigX frequently stepped aside suddenly during his performance to let another rapper perform for what can only be assumed were short breaks, deviating from the typical style of a concert. Seemingly random occurrences would also happen, ranging from unplanned songs being played to an unforeseen Christmas rap track.
One of the few notable things to happen ‘on schedule’ was a moment where BigX took off his sweatshirt, revealing his bare top half while getting ready to rap to songs of his like “Mmhmm” and “The Largest.”
While the environment definitely wasn’t boring by any means, the entire show seemed to lack structure, and with a school that has a rich history of hosting concerts for its students, I would’ve expected better planning and coordination to come out of this event.
