Red and blue spotlights shone down on center stage as the crowd watched the opening act.
The Patrick Gymnasium is not typically the place to be on a Friday night, but after classes ended Sept. 20, twelve hundred people flooded into the gym to watch Indigo De Souza and student band Soap perform their music.
The line outside of Patrick Gymnasium began to form hours before the doors opened at 7:00 p.m.
“Planning has been happening for months, and now that people are lining up outside it’s amazing,” said senior Casey O’Toole, a member of the UVM Program Board’s concert team. “It warms my heart. It makes me so happy to see people who are excited to see what we’ve been working on. It’s always a blast.”
Until Monday, Sept. 16, the public had no idea who UPB would announce as performers for this year’s festival. When the performers were posted, the excitement was obvious as shown by the hundreds of likes and shares on UPB’s Instagram post.
“When I heard Indigo De Souza was performing I was so excited. I also loved the opening band,” first-year Anna Williams said after the concert. “My friends and I were dancing around to their music before Indigo started. It was so much fun.”
The air was thick and the pit was crowded, but the audience was animated. Everyone was full of energy for this lively tradition—conversations filled the room as people danced around.
“It was great,” Williams said. “I felt really connected to other students during the whole show. It’s really cool to know that so many people have similar music tastes at UVM and can connect and bond over it.”
Past artists for FallFest include Del Water Gap, Frankie Cosmos, Yung Gravy and Dr. Dog.
“FallFest has been happening for a long time and it always has good performers. It’s such a good opportunity and so much fun to do,” O’Toole said.
As with prior years, tickets were $15 per student.
“It feels very communal,” O’Toole said. “It’s a fun way to bring a lot of different people together that doesn’t happen often on this campus.”
Striving to have the headliner bring the UVM community together, UPB’s concert committee does not take their decision lightly.
“We wanted the artist to be someone people would know and come to see, and she felt very right for UVM,” O’Toole said. “She’s so loved here. Everyone on my team loves her. I love her.”
Music itself is certainly one of the main things that unites students at UVM. Soap, the student band who opened FallFest, is a prime example of this.
“UVM as an institution seems to be really happy about the fact that we have a really awesome music scene here,” said sophomore Aurora Eddy, vocalist and guitarist for Soap.
Soap formed near the beginning of their collective first year, and their first show’s anniversary is coming up on Oct. 6, said sophomore and drummer for Soap Jake Katz.
“That first [show] was rough and dirty. We broke the drum set,” said sophomore Corby Guba, Soap’s bassist.
Sophomore Jake Dittus, guitarist and the newest member of the band, attended Soap’s first show with friends before he joined the group. He recalled how different that initial performance was from their set at this year’s FallFest.
Soap’s next scheduled gig is Oct. 31 at local venue Higher Ground, opening for Comatose Kids, coincidentally last year’s FallFest opener—a full circle moment.
When they first started, FallFest and Higher Ground felt like the peak of any possibilities for Soap. Now that their dreams are becoming a reality, their focus is being in the moment, Eddy said.
The quintet was both excited and nervous for the performance.
“We were practicing all the time. There was just no time to really think about what we were practicing for until we got to soundcheck,” Guba said. “Then suddenly there’s this huge stage in this massive auditorium and we realized that was what we’ve been doing all of this for.”
