Derulo's concert, sponsored by Programming Board, was received with much anticipation and fanfare by the Dartmouth community. While many of those in attendance were die-hard fans, some were drawn to the show solely by the prospect of hearing the author of Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits "Whatcha Say" and "In My Head" perform live. Others were simply enamored with the chance to see a big-name artist in the middle-of-nowhere New Hampshire.
Ticket holders (the show sold out in just a few hours) began waiting in line for the concert by 6:30 p.m. a full hour and a half before the crowd was allowed to enter Spaulding and over two hours before the show actually started.
"I'm pumped," Juan Carlos Freile Franco '12 told The Dartmouth before the show. "Everyone is going crazy."
This humble reporter was one of the many who arrived early to the Hop in order to stake out a good spot prior to the concert. Whether it was because I was eager to fulfill my dream of being William Miller in "Almost Famous," or because I was excited to see a famous pop star in today's radio-hit world, I anxiously waited for the lights to dim and the show to begin.
And then "Telephoned" happened.
Just as the Programming Board hosts told the audience to turn off their phones and cameras, Telephoned opened up ironically and cruelly with a loud, irritating telephone ring.
The crowd stood dumbfounded as Telephoned took hit song after hit song and mangled it into an unrecognizable and undesirable husk. Whatever energy was in the room in anticipation of Derulo instantly evaporated.
Telephoned, the Brooklyn-based duo of DJ/producer Sammy Bananas and singer Maggie Horn, started off with a cover/remix of Ron Brownz and Jim Jones' "Pop Champagne." As efforts to get the crowd up and dancing failed, Horn burst into an odd, seizure-like dance on the stage, drawing more confused laughs than cheers.
"They make me never want to drink champagne again," Paul Wagdalt '13 said.
Cell phones quickly popped open and texting began in earnest as the audiences' attention shifted away from the stage toward side conversations.
To make matters worse, each remix in the group's set was introduced by the same irritating telephone ring. Each song became an endeavor in frustration, and attempts by the performers to win back the crowd failed miserably.
In one puzzling moment Horn asked the crowd, "Are you into trees?" in order to awaken the sleeping masses for one of her last songs.
"It was one of the funniest things I've seen and not in a good way," Edward Vaisberg '12 said.
The beginning of Derulo's set did much to revive the slumbering throng before him. Heralded by a legion of his fans rushing madly to the stage, Derulo opened with the soulful "The Sky's the Limit," quickly transitioning to the crowd-pleasing "Ridin' Solo."
After serenading a girl in the audience with the amorous song, "What If," Derulo moved on to the much anticipated performance of his hit single "Whatcha Say."
This moment, however, I found the most disappointing of the evening. Whether it was because of his technical crew or the acoustics of Spaulding, Derulo's vocals were overtaken by the background track on nearly every song. This made it seem as if it was not a live performance, but more like a would-be dance troupe's performance of their original choreography to Derulo's music.
Choreography is integral to any live pop-music performance, but unfortunately this was also a letdown. Derulo's dancing featured an interesting mixture of Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake and, for some reason, ballet. While this medley of dancing styles worked at some points during his set, at other times especially when Derulo would give a ballet-like twirl it came across as odd and peculiar.
These things can sometimes be overlooked, however, when the right atmosphere is created within an auditorium, stadium or arena. Put simply, a concert should feel like a concert. Spaulding, however, was not the right venue. Programming Board had to choose their location from the somewhat lean pickings of Dartmouth's venues, none of which are very well suited to a concert like this Spaulding is made for movies and theatrical performances, not pop and R&B stars. Its seating style forced the audience to occupy the aisles and nearly non-existent no-man's-land between the chairs and stage. As a result, much of the audience was stuck in the center rows, entirely disconnected from the proceedings on stage.
After performing his second hit single "In My Head," Derulo thanked the audience and left the stage, leaving many in the audience shocked and disappointed. His eight-song set felt extremely short and, including the opening act, clocked in at little over an hour and a half. Cries of "one more song" fell on deaf ears.
The crowd was in such disbelief that many remained in their seats, refusing to believe that the show was done so quickly.
To me it felt like it was over before it even began.
