Streetlight Manifesto, a ska-punk band, will be performing at Stony Brook on Thursday, Jan. 29.
This concert will be the third one this year as part of the Undergraduate Student Government’s Stony Brook Concert Series. There is nothing like some good music to help Seawolves get back into the swing of the semester after a long winter break.
The concert is going to be held at 8 p.m. in SAC Ballroom A. Students had the opportunity to reserve tickets starting on Sunday, Jan. 18.
Students need their Stony Brook ID to purchase tickets, which are on sale for $5.
Students can reserve a ticket through a Google order form.
The band’s latest album, “The Hands That Thieve,” was released in 2013 and received top ratings and reviews from iTunes, Alternative Press and PunkNews.org, to name a few.
Ska is a genre of music that involves elements from jazz, calypso and Caribbean, among other genres. The band members play instruments like the trumpet, saxophone and trombone.
The combination of these jazz instruments with the guitar, drums and playful melodies creates a fun atmosphere perfect for dancing.
The singer and one of the band’s guitarists, Tomas Kalnoky, is known for spewing his lyrics in a very fast pace to go along with the up-beat, enthusiastic music.
The band has its own unique sound that can be compared to the sound of ska-punk band Reel Big Fish, who rocked Stony Brook campus back in 2012 for the Back to the Brook concert.
Streetlight Manifesto formed in 2002 and originate from New Brunswick, N.J.. The band put out its first album, “Everything Goes Numb,” in 2003.
The band is a combination of two other ska-punk bands, Catch 22 and One Cool Guy.
Two out of the five albums that the band released are cover albums.The album “Keasbey Nights,” released in 2006, is a re-recorded album.
The original album was released in 1998 by Catch 22. However, band members Kalnoky, bassist John Ansley and horn player James Egan left the group shortly after the release of that album. They re-recorded the album with Streetlight—their new band.
The band’s album “99 Songs of Revolution,” released in 2010, consists of all cover songs from artists like Paul Simon, Bad Religion and Dead Milkmen, to name a few.
The other three albums—”Everything Goes Numb” (2003), “Somewhere in the Between” (2007) and “The Hands that Thieve” (2013) are original songs from the band.
The band was recently on its Once More Into The Fray Tour in 2014, where they hit cities like Chicago, New York, Montreal, Boston, Toronto, Silver Springs and Sayreville.
This was a mini-tour for the band. In 2013, the band announced that they would not dive into any full-time tours anymore.
At the time the band described its plan to tour less on absolutepunk.net as “stepping away from the table before we get sick of our favorite meal.”
So, what can Stony Brook students expect from a Streetlight Manifesto performance?
First, wear comfortable clothing because there will be a lot of dancing and you are bound to get hot, especially since the show will be SAC Ballroom.
Second, if you are not a fan, do not expect to be able to understand anything that Kalnoky or any of the other band members will be saying.
Given the typically fast nature of all of the songs, Kalnoky has trained himself to spit those lyrics freakishly quickly.
Also, students should be ready to jump.
The band members themselves like to hop around and that enthusiasm is contagious, which should make for an interesting and entertaining concert.
