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| 04-21-2005 | Previous edition: 04-20-2005 |
        
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Printer-friendly version Guster, Purdue student impress crowd
Staff Writer Brook Xiao was the unexpected spotlight of last night’s Guster concert when he took the stage to accompany a rarely heard live version of "Window" on his violin. After a stellar performance, the crowd jumped and cheered at their classmate, a Purdue sophomore in the College of Science, who only found out at noon Wednesday he would have a chance to play. "I went to one of their concerts about a year ago in Indianapolis," said Xiao after the concert, "I had emailed them about playing but had not heard back until just (Wednesday)." Xiao played one run-through with Guster before taking the stage tonight but didn’t falter, improvising across scales and freely moving around the stage to the rhythm during his solos. He looked as comfortable on stage as the band around him. The rest of Guster’s performance was also well received by an audience waving cell phones and lighters in the air to the mellow tones of the group’s songs. Artificial smoke danced around the band’s drummer, Brian Rosenworcel, as he palmed bongos with one hand and tapped out rhythms with a single stick in the other to create an intimate, organic feel on stage. "There’s no bullshit here," said Ryan Miller, vocalist and guitarist for Guster. "What you see is what you get." The four members played songs from each of their studio albums, including the unreleased album to hit stores in September. The band even held a cheering contest to help decided the name of the unfinished record and Purdue students favored "You say France, I whistle." Guster finished its second encore with an acoustic work in which the members came to the front of the stage and sang, unplugged, to the audience. "That was my favorite part," said Kyle Peterson, a West Lafayette resident who had never before attended a Guster concert. "I loved the acoustic ending." Morgan Bancroft also thought the group was impressive. "It was fantastic! I’d only heard them recorded before, but they were very true to their sound in person," he said. Bancroft also thought the Zambonis, the opening act for the night, who put all of their songs through a hockey metaphor, were exceptional. "I loved them," he said. "Very original." Printer-friendly version |
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