In the weeks after Live Music Association’s, or LMA’s, Homecoming concert, student openers Katie Dolce and Bug Wife are still ecstatic about their performances.
The student acts opened the concert for Tommy Lefroy, an indie pop music duo, in Northeastern’s AfterHours Nov. 5. As Northeastern students, Dolce, an independent folk artist, and Bug Wife, an indie-rock band, which consists of members Sophie Leggett, Matthew Gurlitz, Catherine Robohn and Graham Aiken, have been on LMA’s on-call list for student openers, and they were finally given the chance to showcase their talent in front of hundreds.
Dolce, a third-year criminal justice and psychology combined major, started the concert off.
“I got there and they soundchecked me, and then they just sent me upstairs into one of the rooms in Curry, like a little green room,” Dolce said. “And I just got to sit there and chill out until they were like, ‘You’re on in 90 seconds.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I’m on in 90 seconds, that’s not a lot of seconds.’”
Following Dolce’s performance, Bug Wife took the stage to start its set.
“I used to be really nervous when I go on stage,” said Gurlitz, a fourth-year business administration major. “I think especially with having four people up there, I feel like my nerves are just a lot less.”
Gurlitz and Leggett, a fourth-year environmental and sustainability sciences major, were the founding members of Bug Wife. After meeting during their first year at Northeastern, the two started writing music and performing together, with Leggett writing the songs and Gurlitz producing the music. From there, they created Bug Wife, but a few months ago, the two felt that the band needed more members.
“This summer, we started looking for more band members, which is where we found Catherine,” Leggett said. “So, we became an official band toward the end of the summer.” Robohn, a third-year chemistry major, and Aiken, a third-year politics, philosophy, and economics major, then became the band’s bassist and drummer, respectively.
When it comes to being considered for opening a LMA concert, chance plays a big role. LMA keeps an “unofficial list” of student artists on campus, Dolce said, but with the number of students on it compared to the number of shows put on each semester, the chances of getting the opportunity to perform are slim.
After the openers agree to perform, they then must come up with a 30-minute setlist, which is different from a typical open mic night, where they only have to prepare one or two songs.
“I had to actually fill up a half hour, which was nothing that I’ve ever really had the chance to do before,” Dolce said. “I would just play venue sets in my bedroom and just be like, ‘Okay, it’s 4:30 right now. I’m going to play and, hopefully, by the time it is 5 I’ll have done everything.’”
As for Bug Wife, the band had performed a full setlist almost a month before, which only left room for excitement when it came to performing in AfterHours.
“For me, it was mostly excitement,” Gurlitz said. “I think even just having a few shows, my nerves over performing have gone down a lot.”
During their performance, both artists received positive reactions from the crowd, which they both felt was the best part about performing.
“It was so fun at all the shows we played so far, seeing the audience interaction and seeing people dancing or singing along, even if they maybe know the songs,” Robohn said. “It’s really fun to have almost a conversation back and forth with the audience.”
After Dolce’s set, she was thrilled to see that students were buying the merchandise that she and her roommates made.
“We talked about wanting to make it for a while, but we finally made it happen, and it was so cool,” Dolce said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is a T-shirt that has my album name on it, and other people can wear it. That’s so crazy.’”
Now that both artists have performed for LMA, they are looking forward to performing at more venues and growing their music platforms.
“We have a bunch of songs that we haven’t ever even played together that are written,” Gurlitz said. “It’d be fun to get more shows and more opportunities to try out other songs and just keep that going.”
