{"id":25395,"date":"2010-04-21T11:36:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T15:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=25395"},"modified":"2016-02-08T15:47:55","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T20:47:55","slug":"two-out-of-three-aint-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2010\/04\/21\/two-out-of-three-aint-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Out of Three Ain't Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"snoop-quadangles-9818\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Booking a cool, affordable, and name-brand band takes luck<\/h3>\n

You\u2019ve heard the saying: You can have your project done fast, good, cheap \u2014 pick any two. Similar constraints apply when booking rock bands at a college like Bates. You can have a cool band, a well-known band, and an affordable band, but probably not all three.<\/p>\n

Which is why the Feb. 27 show by Snoop Dogg is a rare trifecta for the Chase Hall Committee, the student group that sponsors much of the social life at Bates, including signature concerts.<\/p>\n

Snoop\u2019s affordable? Check. Bates landed the rapper for $60,000, about 20 percent less than his usual fee, thanks to good luck with his booking agents, says Keith Tannenbaum, Bates\u2019 coordinator of student activities.<\/p>\n

Cool and well-known? Check and check. Snoop\u2019s a legend and still fresh, if only because the mere announcement of his show, held in venerable Gray Cage (named for Bates\u2019 last Baptist preacher-president in 1927), shattered student expectations. A student summed up the campus mood: \u201cWow. Cool. Why Bates?\u201d<\/p>\n

A dud of a show can affect Bates social life all year.<\/p>\n

Booking bands at Bates is all about \u201cmanaging expectations,\u201d Tannenbaum says. On the one hand, rabid music fans would love to blow the CHC budget (around $85,000) on one great show. On the other hand is CHC\u2019s mission: to spend carefully on a year\u2019s worth of parties, dances, and other events.<\/p>\n

So a dud of a show can affect Bates social life all year, and this has been true for decades. In 1982, Bates Student Arts Editor Richard Regan \u201982 said this: \u201cCHC cannot afford to risk the large sums of cash needed to attract major acts to Bates.\u201d Timing and luck have always been dealmakers. Regan noted how the Go-Go\u2019s fee was just $3,500 before Beauty and the Beat but $10,000 after.<\/p>\n

Some examples of the cool\/well-known\/affordable rule in practice:<\/p>\n

Not cool but well-known and affordable.<\/strong> In 2002, students howled when the Gin Blossoms, coming off a five-year hiatus and well past full bloom, were booked by CHC. \u201cBut they did a great show,\u201d says Tannenbaum. Lenny Kravitz was on the verge of a four-year streak as the Grammys\u2019 Best Male Rock Vocal Performer when his 1998 show was canceled due to inexplicably slow ticket sales.<\/p>\n

In 1970, The Grass Roots (\u201cMidnight Confessions\u201d) performed at Winter Carnival, but the show drew a teenybopper crowd that seemed to embarrass the Batesies. Peter Burch \u201973 wrote in the Student that CHC booked
\nThe Grass Roots because Lewiston girls \u201cneed a night off from their Barbie dolls.\u201d Ouch.<\/p>\n

Cool, not well-known, but affordable. In the mid-2000s, \u201cwe could\u2019ve gotten John Mayer for $15,000, but the students were like, \u2018Who\u2019s he?\u2019,\u201d says Tannenbaum. In 2001, few students showed up for Ben Harper\u2019s opener: Jack Johnson.<\/p>\n

Cool, well-known, but unaffordable.<\/strong> In 1984, after CHC broke off contract talks with NRBQ because of rising costs (from $5,000 to $6,200), students bitterly complained that CHC\u2019s decision was fueling \u201csocial stagnation\u201d at Bates.<\/p>\n

Almost a trifecta.<\/strong> When the Dave Matthews Band played in 1995, the group was deemed to have a mere \u201ccult following\u201d by the Student. Joan Baez came in 1961 right before Joan Baez, Vol. 2, went gold. Bowdoin enjoyed similar fortune in 1968, landing Simon and Garfunkel right before The Graduate soundtrack zoomed to No. 1.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Maine colleges have always eyed each other when booking bands. \u201cNo one wants to book a band that\u2019s appeared at the other school,\u201d Tannenbaum says. And, of course, the schools want to outdo each other. Landing Snoop Dogg \u201cis a win,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is a win for years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Booking a cool, affordable, and name-brand band takes luck You\u2019ve heard the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[11012,11009],"tags":[10856,10863,11074],"class_list":["post-25395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-life","category-the-college","tag-bates-magazine","tag-chase-hall-committee","tag-residential-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25395"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88016,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25395\/revisions\/88016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}