Loyolapalooza Performers Are a Success!
By Maureen O'Donoghue
On April 25, Loyola University held its annual end-of- the- year festival, Loyolapalooza, which featured headliner Eric Hutchinson, Barefoot Truth and this year’s winner of the Battle of the Bands, The Clearspring Band along with free food, rides, games, and entertainment.
The festival, which is sponsored by the Loyola University Student Government Association, is usually held on the Loyola quad, but this year was moved into Rietz Arena and McGuire Hall due to the weather forecast. Most students were bummed when they found out the festival would be held inside, but the SGA was able to organize the event so that all the festivities that would have been offered outside available indoors as well.
Sophomore Becky DelBove thought SGA did a good job of reorganizing the event indoors.
“I was sad when I found out it would be inside but SGA did a good job in putting everything together. They still had everything they had last year, it was just inside,” she said. “Good food, good friends, good entertainment. Over all it was a great day.”
The first performer of the festival and this year’s winner of Loyola’s own Battle of the Bands was The Clearspring Band, which is made up of all Loyola seniors. It includes Christian Ventimiglia as lead singer/rhythm guitarist, Chas Mayer on guitar, Tim Williams on bass, Jonathan Khouri on keyboard, Chris Dunn on drums, and Steve McGirr on the saxophone. The band played four original songs including “Spanish Steps” and “Jazz Band” and two covers including “Cover This” by Dispatch and “Money” by Pink Floyd.
Ventimiglia thought the performance was a huge success. “I thought it went awesome. I think we sounded great,” he said. “It was just so much freakin’ fun.”
Freshman Brian Heckert thought the performance was great, too and enjoyed the band's style.
“They jammed pretty hard and I really liked the keyboard and sax,” said Heckert. “It’s really chill music…real easy to jam to.”
The second act of the festival was the American indie/roots jam band, Barefoot Truth. The band performed for just under an hour and their set included a series of original songs and a cover of John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change.”
The final act was headliner, Eric Hutchinson who performed for over an hour and worked hard to get the audience involved by having the crowds sing along during different songs. Hutchinson played songs off of his Sounds Like This album including “Oh!”and “Ok, It’s Alright With Me” along with some new songs. He also sang an improvised song about Loyolapalooza and about, Slappy, an audience member. The crowd loved his new song “The People I know” which Hutchinson said was going to be his next big single. Before thanking the Loyola community and the audience, Hutchinson performed two encore songs including a “My Girl”/”Remix to Ignition”cover and his hit song “Rock and Roll.”
Sophomore Arielle Pocock said she thought all the performers were awesome and the day was an overall success.
“I thought all the performers were really great and it was a great fit for Loyola. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it,” said Pocock. “They were pretty unique performers and I thought overall it was a really good day.”
