Rapper Kendrick Lamar performed for a crowd of approximately 7,000 students and guests on McDonough Field at this year's Spring Band Party on Friday evening. Event planners from Student Programming Council (SPC) estimate that attendance numbers were the highest in Emory concert history.
The concert was the first in a series of two weekend performances that marked the end of Dooley's Week, a week-long celebration of Emory's unofficial mascot. 3Lau, an electronic DJ from St. Louis, performed at Dooley's Ball on Saturday night.
Lamar took the stage around 9:30 p.m., following a brief set from Five & A Dime, a DJ and producer from Philadelphia who will open for Lamar on his college tour stretching into late May.
Lamar's set lasted a brief 90 minutes, and included major hits from Lamar's gold-selling major label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012), as well as some lesser-known tracks from earlier albums such as Overly Dedicated (2010) and Section.80 (2012). Lamar interacted with audience members throughout the show, instructing the crowd to sing along to major hits such as "Money Trees" and the raucous set-opener "P---y and Patron." Catering to a large college crowd, Lamar opted for a loud, in-your-face approach throughout, an aesthetic choice that sidelined the more subdued, nuanced style for which he is well known.
Spring Band Party co-chair and College senior Chris Akavi booked Lamar this fall. He said the rapper's performance exceeded his expectations.
"I rarely think that hip-hop shows are good performances, but [Lamar] blew me away," he said. "I thought he brought energy and clear passion to his performance and was genuinely happy to be up there performing."
College senior Michael Goldberg was not very familiar with Lamar's music before Friday night but said he enjoyed sharing the experience with such a large audience.
"I think what I appreciated most was seeing so many students on the field," he said. "The Emory community really came together."
College sophomore Nandita Vanka is a dedicated fan of Lamar's music.
"It was so energetic and so personal," Vanka said. "But I can see how, if you didn't like Kendrick going into the concert, you might be taken aback."
Others, like College freshman Hannah Harmatz, were not as enthused. "I thought it was decent," Harmatz said. "[Lamar] definitely showed his ego but still got the crowd amped up. I think the biggest problem I had with it was people being too drunk and falling on me and pushing me."
College sophomore Carrie Wiegert was not an avid listener before the concert and said the event left her feeling equally ambivalent. "I know a lot of students who were his fans seemed to feel unimpressed by him as well. Sure, he had a decent digital set-up in terms of lights and visuals, but overall I found the concert kind of boring," she said.
Vanka said she was taken by surprise at the mass of students in attendance.
"I didn't even feel like I was at Emory," she said. "I think I was just shocked by the number of people who came out."
In spite of increased risk-management precautions on the part of SPC, exceptionally high numbers of guest registrations – in part, a result of an influx of students in the area due to the NCAA Basketball Final Four tournament – posed a major challenge, according to SPC Vice President-Elect and College junior Graham Brooks. SPC reportedly received approximately 1,350 guest registration requests, nearly three times as many as were requested for 2010 Spring Band Party performer Wiz Khalifa.
SPC President-Elect and Goizueta Business School junior Raghvi Anand and Brooks served as co-chairs for Dooley's Week this year. In order to stem the overwhelming tide of registrations, Brooks and Anand made the decision to shut down online registration for both weekend concerts hours earlier than originally planned, late Thursday night.
"Emory students are our number-one priority," Brooks said of the decision to cap registrations. "We want to make sure that the people paying for these events through their Student Activity Fees are having the best experience possible."
After dozens of hospitalizations due to intoxication at last year's Dooley's Ball, SPC took extra risk-management precautions for this year's weekend festivities, including mass emails to the student body, notices on flyers and IFC-sponsored shuttles to and from campus. Chloe Saeks, Spring Band Party co-chair and College senior, said she believes the added risk-reduction efforts had a positive impact on the event.
"The overall event was much better from a safety standpoint than in years passed," she said.
– By Lane Billings
Photo by David Feldman
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