As the minutes ticked by, it grew closer to show time. The lights dimmed and MC Kevin Supple took the stage as a hush swept across the audience.
“Hi everybody,” he said with his Irish wit and paused, “and welcome to The Chronicle Presents an Alternative.” Then it was on.
The audience erupted as 82 Dragons took the stage to a “machine-gun-futuristic-fantastic” rendition of “Just the Way You Are,” by Billy Joel.
You may have seen the flyers around campus, you may have seen the sign in the cafe, or perhaps one off the hundred-some-odd free t-shirts.
“The Chronicle Presents an Alternative” was an anti-drinking program created by The Chronicle. It was a chance for students to come together and eat free food, wear free T-shirts, and watch three bands perform for nearly two hours on Saturday, February 24.
82 Dragons, The Burrheads, and Honkey Dorey played full sets that kept the crowd’s toes tapping and finger’s snapping. Each band has their roots firmly planted in Quinnipiac University, having kicked it live at the Coffee House Series in the Ratt and the being in the line up for WQAQ’s open mic night.
That’s right, if you didn’t get enough of them last Saturday night, the best is yet to come. The whole lot of them and many more at WQAQ’s open mic night on March 31.
82 Dragons made up of the vocal styling of Research and Superstar, the moves of Steve “Dance Too Much Booty In The Pants,” and phantom ivory tickling skills of P.O.Box opened the night playing their classic set with a new twist.
“P-Coat Parade,” their marching zinger, was the first tune to break the silence, followed by the classics “8 Beat Duck” and “Hercules.” Then they busted out with a new tune, “Sorority Girl.”
“Well, “Sorority Girl” was thought up one night when we were all sitting around,” Research mentioned. “It’s not true…well not completely true.”
The Dragons’ QU debut was only a few weeks back at the Rattskellar, where they closed with the same song, “Political Song.” Superstar gave his take on the night saying, “The band is probably the best thing ever to hit Quinnipiac, they were lucky to see us play, the audience that is.”
Freshman Andrew Mallardi, who attended the concert, acknowledged, “they are amusing.”
Superstar rebutted by saying, “You are a fool, we are the greatest.”
The Burrheads took the stage second with their eclectic mix of hardcore and lounge tunes. They fired out a 30 minute set that was loud enough to make the amps nearly combust.
It is a good thing they didn’t, because there was enough fire on the stage already. During the crowd favorite “Ginkgo Biloba,” guitarist Jay Volpe was quickly ablaze.
Their action packed six song set covered the majority of material on their new CD. “It was good to hear something other than KC 101,” freshman Lisa Spinelli said after they finished.
“It was a good time,” mentioned Volpe. “We would play anywhere, anytime, we just like to play.” He added, “Anytime the Burrheads and Honkey Dorey get together it brings another dimension to Quinnipiac, an alternative side.”
Honkey Dorey was third in the lineup, the punk rock quartet plus one, put a cap on the night by pumping out five songs in Alumni Hall.
Front man Adam Bouvier climbed the guardrail around the stage and worked his way up the curtain before leaping back to the platform in “Pirates of Punk.”
While lead guitarist Kevin Bouvier, no relation, ran spastically back and forth spanking out killer riffs through the entire set, and Johnny the bass player melodically jumped up and down.
The pushing drum beats played by Matt Santos, kept the crowd into it and brought a following back with the band to Perlroth Residence Hall where the set up in silence to play an encore show.
“We cut our set short in Alumni so that we could rock Perlroth unannounced,” stated Adam. “We just thought it would be a lot of fun to set up and play a rouge show.”
About three notes into their metal intro, hall directors and residence assistants had swarmed the band and seemingly shut down the impromptu performance.
However, the sweet talking lead singer managed to convince the authorities to give them one five minute song, which ended up being two shorter jams. They led off with their first single “Archeology” and continued on to a punk rock cover of Ah-Ha’s “Take on Me.”
Guitarist Kevin Bouvier summed up the night by saying, “They didn’t expect us to rock this general area but what we did was come and rock this general area.”