Quadstock XX lives up to epic expectations

Quadstock XX was advertised on campus with little more than a one-word description: epic. And contrary to many people's expectations, epic truly described the event, which offered attendees 10 straight hours of music, food, fun, games and community in the Seattle sun.

The entire day was wrought with anticipation for Talib Kweli's headlining set, but the day started hours before his performance on the Union Green. This year marked the second year in a row in which the showcase in the Quad was preceded by several hours of student-run activities on the green.

The Union Green was littered with small events of all varieties-from a photo booth sponsored by the Photo Club to a wrestling ring with sumo suits to a dunk tank filled with student musicians and university officials.

Some of the more popular events on the green included a henna tent-which constantly had more than 50 people waiting in line for personalized body art-and a homemade science experiment created by the Physics Club that allowed participants to walk on water (sort of).

"It's just cornstarch and water, it's called 'ublec' and it's just a non-Newtonian fluid," said Bonnie Canion, junior physics and mathematics major, of the Physic Club's six-foot long vat of beige goo on the green. "When you punch it really hard and really short then it's a solid, but if you just kind of dip your fingers into it then it's a liquid. You can run across it, so that's what we have people doing here."

But in spite of SEAC's effort to entertain people throughout the whole day, it seemed like some saw the opening festivities as merely a time-filler before Kweli's set.

"This is kind of an anticlimactic first part, isn't it?" said Nick Billings, a senior English and philosophy major attending his first Quadstock thanks to Kweli headlining the bill. "I mean yeah, I dunno, the student performers were student performers and that's all you can say about that."

The student performers and the various activities on the green kept students and their guests on-campus before the main event kicked off, but the event's attendance didn't pick up until the quad opened at 4 p.m. The first couple of main stage bands-Lion's Ambition and The Love Lights-put on fine performances, but most early arrivers were mainly interested in the free food offered up by restaurants like Ezell's Famous Chicken, Dick's, Pita Pit and Domino's.

As the main event for the evening kicked into high gear, Quadstock XX set itself apart from its predecessors on one important level: attendance. The quad was nicely filled in for Vellela Vellela, the happy-go-lucky dance band that preceded the night's main event, but when it came time to get ready for Kweli the area became absolutely packed.

John Bush, Quadstock XX's chair, admitted to overselling the event by almost 500 tickets but noted it was all part of the plan.

"Just like when you admit students to a university, you have to admit more students than you have space for because a lot of them aren't going to come," said Bush, senior management and civil engineering major. "We have to do the same thing with Quadstock. We have to sell more tickets, if we can, than we have the capacity for because a lot of people aren't going to come."

In spite of the high attendance, Bush noted Quadstock XX ended up being surprisingly incident-free.

"For the amount of people that came [Public Safety] had the least amount of incidents this year almost ever," Bush said. "I didn't have to deal with anything; nobody came to me and said we had a problem."

He also said the level of drunkenness this year was significantly less than the year before, and the passport parties didn't seem to do much to detract from the event's attendance. Aside from a couple instances of students mistaking their passport party T-shirts for tickets into the actual Quadstock event, attendance at the gate seemed to go fairly smoothly.

Bush however noted one of the biggest problems in the event was the Frisbee frenzy that occurred just before Kweli performed, but he said it was as much SEAC's fault as it was the attendees'.

"The Frisbee thing got a little crazy at one point, but we learned from that to probably not give away Frisbees anymore," Bush said. "That's one of those things we didn't think of ahead of time."

Overall, Bush was impressed with the event's turnout and execution. He said he was nervous before the day began, but had a blast just being at Quadstock even while having to run the whole affair.

Of course, the event's final act was also its crowning moment. Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek stormed the main stage with an irrepressible energy and rattled off a set of tunes that was filled with old Kweli and Reflection Eternal (a collaborative effort between Kweli and Hi-Tek) hits, not to mention several other songs from Kweli's prolific career.

The best moment of the night though perhaps came when Kweli closed his pre-encore set with back-to-back renditions of his verse from Kanye West's "Get 'Em High" and his own classic "Get By." His flow was tight, his humor was spot-on, and he played the stage like he owned it the whole set through.

"I like Seattle University," Kweli told The Spectator in an exclusive interview. "They showed me a lot of love and they seemed very excited to have us here, and I was excited to be here."

Kweli said he enjoyed being back together on stage with Hi-Tek, and is excited to start releasing more music under the Reflection Eternal moniker. He also gave a nod to the reality of piracy on college campuses, urging kids to keep supporting the bands however they can.

"I think [piracy] is great as long as [students] come to the shows and support the album," Kweli said. "I think people who are thieves are going to be thieves no matter what the medium is, and I think people who love music are going to love music and support the artist no matter what the medium is."

Minor issues aside, Quadstock XX exceeded everyone's expectations. It set the bar incredibly high for next year's iteration, and proved why Quadstock remains the one dominant Seattle University tradition.