On Saturday, Aug. 31, exactly one week after move-in day, GW’s Program Board hosted its annual Fall Fest concert featuring artists DJ Earworm and Timeflies.
The performance took place in the University Yard and drew a crowd that included undergrads, graduate students and alumni.
Fall Fest began with an afternoon fair that included giveaways from corporate sponsors, amusements, and complimentary refreshments. Members of the GW community who showed up early to the concert enjoyed these benefits as part of a celebration of the start of a new academic year.
As DJ Earworm came onto the stage at around 5pm, concert-goers filed into University Yard to catch a glimpse of the opening artist, who is famous for his work with video and music mashups.
Jordan Roseman, the man behind the moniker of DJ Earworm, is originally from San Francisco and is known for his annual “United States of Pop” mashups that fuse the top 25 songs of the year as ranked by Billboard magazine.
By 6pm, the up-and-coming musical duo Timeflies took center stage in the Yard, where they performed into the early evening. Formed in 2010, the group is made up of Rob Resnick and Cal Shapiro, the latter of whom serves as Timeflies’ lead vocalist.
The Timeflies duo met at Tufts University and most recently performed at the music festival, Lollapalooza, in early August. For Fall Fest, the group performed a mix of original songs and covers that featured much of Shapiro’s freestyle rapping.
After asking the audience for topics to rap about, Timeflies settled on subjects such as RG3, the Boston Celtics, and the Alpha Phi sorority.
Timeflies went on to cover such crowd favorites as “Wagon Wheel”, “We Are Young”, and the Disney classic
“Under the Sea” during which they sprayed the crowd with water bottles to help them “cool down”.
When Shapiro asked for suggestions for a song to freestyle to about GW related subjects, he decided upon “Space Jam” by Quad City DJ’s. He then pulled out a piece of paper with notes about GW life and went on to rhyme about “egg and cheeses” from the GW Deli, Froggy Bottom Pub (which moved to its new location on K Street this past summer), and the ever-popular GW hangout, McFadden’s.
For their final song, Timeflies performed a recent single, “I Choose You”, and then exited the stage to wild applause from the crowd on University Yard. The group promised to meet of-age Colonials in bars later that night, to celebrate a great event.
With the achievement of on another successful Fall Fest concert, the Program Board has already begun to plan for the much-anticipated Spring Fling concert, which will close out the school year in April.
–Alec Nadeau
Watch the full Timeflies set from Fall Fest 2013:
