From March 17-18, the McArdle Theatre was rocked to its foundation by the music of Keweenawesomefest. A dozen talented bands took the stage to entertain an ever appreciative audience. The listeners were certainly not passive in their enjoyment, as many nodded or tapped their feet to the energetic beats and even jumped with the higher energy bands.
The WMTU, Michigan Tech’s own radio station, hosted the musical festival. They have carried on the concerts with a euphoric air for many years since their first music festival called Copper Country Crush-a-Thon that started in 2002, which was a single day event that showed a variety of metal and rock bands from across the United States. It was succeeded in 2007 by the current Keweenawesomefest, which is meant to focus more on the regional music scene of the Midwest and to support local Houghton bands. The exact tastes of the Keweenawesomefest have evolved over the years, as its inaugural event consisted mainly of indie rock bands; as years passed, the festival became more accustomed to punk and electronic bands before the recent shift back towards the rock and metal genres.
With such a broad range of genres to choose from, the selected dozen are but a handful of the 80 plus bands that a select group of staff of WMTU rigorously vet. Their vetting process must be a marvelous one as the audience was enjoying the bands profusely, such as third year environmental engineer Rose Turner who “likes the bands as there is a good variety [in the festival]” and she is very much glad that she came for her second year in a row.
On why he likes the festival, fifth year communication, culture and media major Casey Nelson remarked that “when people come up here, they’re not expecting a local music scene; but once they get here they see it and it surprises people when they come to Keweenawesomefest. I think Keweenawesomefest is a good introduction to the Houghton music scene.” One of the bands of the local music scene is Rivals, featuring Alexi Geshel, Brad Butkovich, Cory Koski, Matt Langlas and Steven Klier. Rivals has been together since last June after gathering all the members of the band in the span of three days, starting to practice only a week later. Alexi Geshel was very excited about having the band playing at Keweenawesomefest. “I’ve been coming here since I was 16, and it’s always been sort of a dream of mine to be able to play it.
I’ve always been a singer and I’ve never been in a band, so this year when they asked us to play, I was like way too excited, “said Geshel. Their performance was particularly special as Rivals played a new song of theirs wonderfully, so new that they hadn’t been able to practice it much. Another one of the highly anticipated bands that played was Never Doubt The Worm, made up of Chad Hanish, Jack Daily, Tyler Cross, Kevin Key, and Dan Schmidt. From a metal project between band members Tyler Cross and Chad Hanish, they started various bands and slowly built up to Never Doubt The Worm that played Friday night. Their performance was also special as this was their first show in Michigan, since they are based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. What a performance it was, as their music was so filled with energy that it could be felt outside the room and heard from the first floor of Walker.
They interacted well with the fans, especially Chad Hanish who jumped down to embrace the crowd during their set. Michigan Tech left just as much of an impression on Never Doubt The Worm as they did on Michigan Tech, as the band enjoyed the clean air, found the setup to be sick and the campus to be “pretty badass, like in the hills and stuff like that in the snowy College of Winterhold way.” To learn more about Keweenawesomefest, check their website kfest.mtu.edu. To keep up to date with the Rivals, check their Twitter @RIVALStheband or their Facebook page facebook.com/ rivalsmusicofficial, and for Never Doubt The Worm, check their facebook at facebook.com/NDtheW.
