This past weekend, Sunday April 17th, Umass Amherst held their spring concert. This concert had a lot of hype to it. In previous weeks, the school started out by slowly releasing the artists day by day. After finally releasing the list of featured artists, Fetty Wap, Tinashe, and Logic, the excitement began.
The tickets were released on a bright and sunny Monday morning at 10 am. UMass said they only had a limited amount of floor seats, so the wait for tickets started early.
I personally was apart of this wait. I went into the line after class thinking that I would be waiting an hour tops, but little did I know that it would be longer than that. I ended up waiting for my Spring Concert ticket for five hours. FIVE HOURS. I did not cut line so I walked around the Mullins Center twice waiting patiently (or tried to stay patient). Luckily I was with a few friends of mine, but as the hours grew longer, the wait became more and more annoying. At about halfway through the line, we almost gave up, but I didn't have class so I made the push through thinking Fetty Wap would be worth it.
A few days before the concert, Umass unexpectedly released 100 more floor tickets, but any UMass student that already had a ticket couldn't buy another one. Everyone with an arena ticket wanted these tickets. It turned out that the procrastinators lucked out by getting a ticket late.
This long weekend included so many events that the concert seemed to become less and less relevant as the weekend continued. When Sunday rolled around, I broke out my “Spring Concert playlist” on my Spotify and started to get excited. I rushed back from my day events to grab a quick bite to eat at Berkshire Dining hall. I started getting ready for the concert about 6:30, while the concert did start at 7:00 and the doors opened at 6:00 pm. Sadly I missed Logic and arrived right before Tinashe.
I thought since I had a floor ticket that the line would be short and easy, but little did I know that I would be waiting outside for the concert for about an hour before they would let me in. The line moved slowly as I watched people getting thrown out or rejected from entering the arena.
I finally made it in. The only song I knew by Tinashe were “All Hands On Deck” and “2 On”. She was a good performer live, but like everyone else I really only wanted to see Fetty Wap. The wait for Fetty was later than anticipated and he even had an opening act called “KosherBurger”. I watched as angry students booed off this band that I have never heard of. Fetty did not get on stage until 11pm, hours later than we thought the concert would end. His performance was shorter than I would have liked, but he was a good performer. Our goal of the night was to see who could see Fetty’s glass eye.
Looking back at the concert as a whole, I did have fun, but the hype for it was to much. I think the high expectations of last years concert set the expectations very high for this years. That being said, I am glad I had a floor ticket because that did make a difference in my experience. I also will be at the concert next year because of the good deal of tickets ($15 UMass students) and the fun environment that came with the coming together of my fellow UMass students and I.
