By Chris Brook
As the summer winds down and Boston continues its transformation into a lively college town, Northeastern will offer a soundtrack to the new semester.
AfterHOURS, the Northeastern chapter of the Music and Entertainment Industry Student Association (MEISA) and Kappa Sigma are bringing music to students.
“There’s a chance that music industry students can be seen as elitist,” said MEISA President Clara Rice. “But we want to get everyone out of their [residence halls] to show that you don’t need to know a lot about music to get involved.”
AfterHOURS hopes to start things off with a bang with performances by All Time Low Sept. 15 and Circa Survive Sept. 26. On Hopeless and Equal Vision Records respectively the two are national touring bands familiar in circles of pop-punk and emo fans.
AfterHOURS also plans to bring former-local-band-turned-big Apollo Sunshine to campus Oct. 2. The band, known for its up-tempo, psych-influenced pop rock is fresh off playing the Tweeter Center in August alongside Modest Mouse and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as well as this summer’s Bonnaroo Festival.
Assistant Director of Student Activities and afterHOURS manager Tasha Henderson said the club has changed their hours for fall in order to better suit their programming. The club is now open Monday through Thursday from 8 p.m. to midnight and Friday and Saturday from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
AfterHOURS is putting their focus on marketing this year to let students know about upcoming concerts. By printing flyers and increasing their marketing presence inside the club, they want to reach more ears.
“We are focused on consistency in our marketing and the commitment to brand this year,” Henderson said. “We have a ton of fun novelty items to give away to get the word out about afterHOURS.”
AfterHOURS will also feature a Q’A session by Warped Tour creator Kevin Lyman Sept. 14, a karaoke night sponsored by the Vietnamese Student Association Sept. 7 and a performance by Northeastern’s a cappella group, Distilled Harmony, Sept. 10. The club will also continue to host NU ‘ Improv’d shows on various Tuesdays through the fall and is planning another comedy show in conjunction with the school’s humor publication, Times New Roman, Oct. 3.
MEISA Live, a weekly series of open mic nights for Northeastern students at afterHOURS, will continue. MEISA Jazz Mondays will shed light on a musical genre that doesn’t get much attention on a school-wide level, Rice said.
“Whenever a campus club has an event. We’re the people who co-plan the music side,” Rice said. “We’re going to work really hard branding ourselves and putting on good speakers, good music and good events.”
Kappa Sigma will also continue its music series on select Thursdays through the semester. Eclectic Collective and Sucka Brown, two established bands that play funk-tinged pop rock, will perform Oct. 11 and Nov. 15, respectively.
