inside the artist’s studio

In keeping with tradition I again attended a concert this Friday. It was just fifteen minutes away from the last concert I went to and it was the same band. The concert at Taylor was a little over priced at eight dollars and the only good band that played was Anathallo. The concert at IWU was only two dollars and it included a two hour sketch comedy show, Friday Night Live (FNL). The sketch Comedy show was an all student led performance that happens once every semester. Anathallo was the musical guest and played two songs during the show just as a musical guest would on Saturday Night Live. At first my friends and I were a bit worried that the sketches wouldn’t be that funny or that they would all be inside jokes that only IWU students would find funny. Thank goodness we were completely wrong. This was the single most amazing student led performance I have ever seen. The beginning started with a parody of the musical “Newsies” with full costumes and choreography! Each sketch continued to be just as funny there wasn’t one dud. There was never any dead time because between set changes there was a house jam band that played cover songs or there was a short video sketches that were hilarious. The ones that stuck out in my mind were the commercials for the college hope foundation which was a mock of the compassion international. During the commercial we were told that we could sponsor a college student for the low price of 2300 dollars a week so that we could fill the students belly with mocha soy lattes and fill their ears with music from their new ipod. By far the best sketch was the office seen where Gary was asked to do something CRAZY! If you were at FNL then you know what I mean when I say “I went to Gary land”. At certain points during the show I am positive that the girls sitting in front of us wanted to kill me because I was laughing so hard. During the whole performance I was thinking I dare Grace College to ever pull off something this amazing. You hear that Grace College I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU!

The Anathallo concert after FNL was the real reason we came (FNL was still amazing). After FNL we had to walk through the student union to get to where Anathallo was playing. When I think student union I think maybe a bookstore a game room, maybe a small little diner type place to get food, but NO at IWU that have a mall!!! It looks like you are on a city street inside and it has everything from multiple restaurants, coffee shop, hair salon, art gallery and even a movie theater! Of course all of the Grace students felt a little jealous of all the amenities. We ended up waiting till almost 1:30am for Anathallo to play. This made for a fun show because everyone was silly and tired. Even at 1:30 in the morning Anathallo did not disappoint and as I said before they get better every time I see them. The crazy fiery guy was still as fiery as ever and the whole band’s sound was incredible. After the show we just chilled out and talked to people and some of the guys from the band. Marian is an hour and half or so form Warsaw so we didn’t get home till almost 4am, but it was worth it and I would do it again if I had the chance.

P.S. If any one knows of any amazing shows this Friday I would like to go so I can keep this tradition going.