With the annual Live! On Main concert coming Saturday Sept. 10, student reactions to 2000s pop-punk band We The Kings as the headliner have ranged from confusion to downright hatred towards ACBU.
ACBU vice president and senior biology major Abbey McComb sat down with The Scout and explained the process of how bands such as We the Kings are invited to perform on the Hilltop.
“ACBU sends a price range to its agent, who sends back potential performers within the budget,” McComb said. “We do usually try to find people within our range that students would be excited about or at all interested in. We really wanted to see a more female presence on campus, so we were looking at literally every single female artist we could.”
Options this year, female or otherwise, were severely limited by budget and scheduling conflicts, among other factors.
“For the most part, we’re looking at C-list artists,” McComb said. “There’s some points [where] we’re able to snatch an artist right before they get really, really big. That had happened a couple of years ago with Bo Burnham. Then there’s also instances like We The Kings where we have to look at it as a throwback concert.”
Rumors about Jack Harlow performing at Bradley in the past are completely unfounded, as ACBU said his asking price was much more expensive than what would be feasible.
“There’s artists that have said, ‘I’m not going to do any sort of college show anymore,’ even if they’re not an A-list artist … which is more than respectable, but as an activities council, that narrows our efforts a little bit,” McComb said.
Many students took to the anonymous social media app Yik Yak to voice their displeasure with the selection of We The Kings. To improve the selection process for the future, ACBU has discussed the concept of making a poll for students to vote on which artists and genres they would want to see.
“We’ve also been advised against [the polls] through our middle agent,” McComb said. “She has found that there is more success and less backlash when a poll doesn’t go out. On the other hand, we’re programming for students so that is the most important thing — to be thinking about students.”
Students interviewed about the event either had other plans and could not go or were unfamiliar with We The Kings entirely.
“I’m going,” sophomore kinesiology major Daustin Perez said. “But I don’t know who they are.”
Members of ACBU are aware of the backlash stemming from the headliner choice, but they have found solace in knowing that there is not much else they could do.
“It’s not motivating, obviously,” McComb said in regards to the negative reaction on social media. “We know that we do our best here. We had our little moment to see the Yik Yaks, see the situation happening and take a second to ourselves. We still know that we’re doing the best we possibly can and it’s just something we’ve decided to move forward from.”
Despite the student backlash, McComb remains optimistic.
“We are still really hopeful for the concert,” McComb said. “We recognize the backlash and look to move forward from that.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and conciseness.
