By Jeanine Budd
He drops albums non-stop once a year for his fans’ sake. He cracks mics until his hand breaks. He shags now and shags later until these women can’t stand straight. And now he’s coming to perform at Northeastern for Springfest 2008.
“I think it’s interesting that Ludacris is playing,” said Meghan Lovaditch, a senior international affairs and economics major. “I’m surprised that he’d ever want to work with us again after we totally pulled out on our contract.”
Lovaditch was referring to four years ago, when then-president Richard Freeland canceled the Springfest concert, set to lead with Ludacris, as punishment after students participated in Super Bowl riots. But Ludacris is finally taking the stage at Northeastern. He will be playing April 12, with the Roots and Toots and the Maytals. The night will also include DJ sets by Knife.
However, Ludacris’ timely performance wasn’t done on purpose, said Jeff Maimon, the concert’s chair for the Council for University Programs (CUP), who’s also a senior this year.
“We were so close to getting someone who would have been amazing, but I’m not going to name names here,” Maimon said. “It was between either playing at our school or going on a big tour with someone else- Northeastern didn’t win that bid.”
After several months of going through lists of possible artists and surveying students, Ludacris was the headlining act that CUP chose.
“There were at least four or five groups that weren’t even hip hop that we were so close to having. We’d finally get good possibilities and they’d end up falling through,” Maimon said. “The Roots were the first act we put in the bid for, because they’re so diverse. With them, you really didn’t know which way it would go; you really could adapt to who they were playing with.”
Diem Nguyen, a sophomore pharmacy major, said she’d definitely go to see Ludacris. “It’s a bunch of different kinds of music, so it should be a lot of fun,” she said. Instead of waiting in line and not being able to get their hands on tickets, as some students experienced last year, tickets to this year’s show will be sold solely through NUPAY via MyNEU, with the date of the ticket sale set for March 26. The day following the purchase, students can pick up their tickets at the box office in Blackman Auditorium with a valid NU Student ID. Students may only purchase up to two tickets per NUID, with each costing $5. For last year’s concert, which headlined rapper Nas, 3,600 tickets were sold in the first round of sales, prompting CUP to open up the balcony area of Matthews Arena to allow more viewers. In the end, 4,350 people came to see Nas, along with RJD2, Lupe Fiasco and Gym Class Heroes.
CUP funds the Springfest concert every year primarily with the the Major Concert Fund, which is comprised of approximately $250,000 accumulated from the Student Activities Fee.
Tom Cody, a junior computer science major, said it is worth the cost.
“I’ve never heard of Toots and the Maytals and it’s a lot of hip hop in two years, but I think it’s worth the money and I’ll probably be there,” he said.
Maimon said it was never CUP’s original intention to have Springfest be an overall hip hop show. “But we weren’t necessarily steering away from that idea, either,” he said.
He said he didn’t think hip hop had been represented well during the past few Springfests.
“There was the cancellation of Ludacris, then before that the Mighty Mighty Bosstones played, and after that year, Moby was the headlining act,” he said. “I’m very proud of what we have this year and I think students should be proud, too.”
