“Where’s Chiddy!?”
“We want Chiddy!”
The crowd grew antsy as they anxiously awaited the main event for the night’s show.
The transformation of the Student Activities Center, Ballroom A was nothing new. A stage was set up on the far wall and took up almost a third of the space of the room. The “Top 40” music that occupied the radio waves blasted through the speakers that were set up around the room. The lights were dim and the atmosphere had a tentative feel to it.
It hasn’t been long since the Student Activities Board, or SAB, sponsored a medium-scale event as part of the Stony Brook Concert Series for the student and surrounding community; they hosted a moderately-successful comedy event on Oct. 25.
Granted, at the peak of the concerts in the late 60s to early 70s, there were times that two major events would happen in one week with performers in the double-digits performing throughout the year.
And on Nov. 13, SAB sponsored Long Island-native Hoodie Allen and Pennsylvania-native Chiddy Bang in the third installment of a continuing concert series for the year. Like any show, the ballroom slowly filled up as the students walked through metal detectors and were subject to a pat down by security. It seems that this is slowly becomming the norm at SAB-sponsored events.
Some of the students instantly started bobbing their heads along to the beats of Hoodie Allen. Others looked confused, as if they had accidentally stumbled upon a Narnian-experience after coming in from the cold Sunday night.
Hoodie Allen, whose real name is Steven Markowitz and hails from Nassau County, rapped over Notorious B.I.G.’s “Party and Bullshit,” but with his own twist. “Get to drinking and you know that we at the Bench.”
Hoodie Allen utilized the whole stage throughout his hour-long set. He didn’t ask that the crowd throw their hands in the air at one point in time through each song, unlike Chiddy Bang, who constantly requested a sea of waving hands. Though the crowd put their hands in the air on their own and moved along to the beat of each track that Hoodie Allen played.
Roughly ten minutes past 9 p.m., Hoodie Allen wrapped up his final song. But the crowd would have to wait more than a half hour before the headliner, Chiddy Bang would come on. It wasn’t until 9:40 p.m. that Chiddy Bang took the stage for his performance. The cause of his delay was unknown at the time pf press.
Despite the late start, Chiddy jumped right into their set and cranked the bass up to what seemed like its limit.
A common question that each of the rappers had to ask to the crowd was one is becoming more and more prevalent of performers that come to the campus:
“What’s a Seawolf? Can anyone tell me what a Seawolf is?” And, on cue, like during the Comedy Central on Campus tour, the crowd instinctively responded with “I’m a Seawolf!”
Despite fleeting moments throughout Chiddy Bang’s set, the crowd dwindled as the clock near 11 p.m. as people made their way from the front toward the exit in the back.
It seemed that some students were more inclined to get back to their Sunday-night-studies than staying for the final song.
