By Julia Piper

News Correspondent

Students rocked out – maybe a little too hard – at this year’s Tastemakers Magazine semiannual Tastemakers Presents concert on Centennial Common Oct. 1. Titus Andronicus headlined with Javelin and The Dodos as openers.
The concert was free and tables with giveaways from snack chip company Food Should Taste Good and Tastemakers Magazine dotted the common.
The executive board of Tastemakers picked the bands because they felt that they would draw a larger and more diverse crowd. All three groups generated excitement, which made this year’s show a little bit different than past years where the show hinged on the popularity of one artist, said Tastemakers President Kyle Risley.
“We wanted to try to build a good lineup from start to finish so that we didn’t just relyon one name, which is what we’ve done in the past,” Risley said.
Risley and Catilin Kullberg, Tastemakers’ marketing director, both expressed their happiness with how the show turned out. They credited the excellent organization and participation of the members of Tastemakers for the success of the event.
“The band and the crowd had a lot of energy,” said Runyon Colie, a sophomore computer science major that attended the show.
Risley anticipated an enthusiastic crowd, but didn’t expect crowd surfing during Titus Andronicus’s set. He warned the event security ahead of time and provided them with a video of a previous performance by the band to show them an example of what they would be dealing with. However, he said he was disappointed with the end result.
“That was a consequence of security being ill-prepared and inexperienced with that sort of setting,” Risley said.
As far as repercussions of the incident go, Risley and Kullberg said they don’t think they will be too harsh. The main issue they found with it was that even after Risley asked lead singer Patrick Stickles to request that students stop crowd surfing, they didn’t. The primary concern was safety.
“I was personally just really worried that someone was going to break their neck on that fence,” Kullberg said.
The safety issue was a new experience for Tastemakers Presents organizers, because their concerts usually feature more acoustic-based music, Risley said. It was an important lesson for Tastemakers. Now they will be more prepared and will choose their security vendor for future events accordingly.
The Tastemakers Presents concert series started in the spring of 2007. Since, the show has grown; it was originally held in afterHOURS, but the crowd outgrew the small, indoor setting. The show has evolved into more than just a concert as well. Students from NUTV  filmed the show while students from Tastemakers recorded the audio, conducted interviews with the band members, took photos of the show and portraits of the bands.
“The photo shoot is something that’s new for us,” Kullberg said.
All the photographs – from both the live show and the band portraits – are on the Tastemakers website. This collaboration across media is a newer development for the publication and one that they encourage their members to pursue in all parts of the magazine.
Tastemakers’ use of mutli-media extends into their advertisement of events. Posters were up in dining halls and residence hall lobbies and cards were stuck under doors in freshmen dorms. The main form of advertisement, however, was Facebook. It allowed students to interact with the promotion of the show and drew students from more diverse groups.
“It also reaches all of the kids who are off campus,” Kullberg said.
Tastemakers had to delay publicity for the event due to issues with Northeastern’s Office of the University Counsel. Risley said the office lost key documents, which he said is a result of the way they process contracts. He and Kullberg cite this familiar conflict as the major reason that past shows have drawn smaller crowds.  Fortunately, the three bands were cooperative and each have enough of a fan base on campus that the late announcement didn’t negatively effect the size of the crowd.
In spite of the legal issues beforehand and mosh pit and crowd surfing during the show, the event went off without a hitch.
“The show went better than expected because nothing went wrong, and I usually expect things to go wrong,” Risley said.