fun. and Parachute Play Founder’s Day

Last night, SPA and the Lion Ambassadors provided Penn State students with some Founder’s Day entertainment as Parachute and fun. played in front a large crowd at Alumni Hall.

Staff-mate Evan Ponter was kind enough to write about Parachute’s set, because I don’t know a single thing about the band.  Here is his take on Parachute’s set:

The only prelude I had to Parachute was my girlfriend over-playing one of their radio jams and a group of Altoona transfers telling me how much the pop, jam act sucked when they saw them three years ago.

“Seriously shit, they suck.”
“They’re just not good at all.”
“I’m mad because I could have at least another hour of pre-gaming if it wasn’t for god damn Parachute.”

So I wasn’t surprised when the five piece nearly put the Alumni Hall crowd to sleep with repetitious piano licks and lyrics about lame stuff like love and kissing your mom. The lead vocalist looked like a cheap version of The Stroke’s vocalist, Julian Casablancas. He tried to bounce around get the crowd going with chants of “baby” and “Christoper” (seriously that happened), but the energy level stayed relatively stagnant. The only spike in enthusiasm came as the lead vocalist broke out into his bar band roots with a cover of Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.” It was a shitty cover but people pay to see Table Ten all the time, so it worked.

When the goofy looking bassist started jamming some funk revival, I kind of woke up from being so burnt out and sick of listening to Parachute. However, it was quickly muffled by the guitarists sloppy licks and the asshole playing a xylophone. To solidify Parachute in Penn State performer disaster, the already pacifying act ended there set with a weird, drawn out cover of U2. There were no calls for “one more song,” in fact I heard a few chants for Rodney Erickson to take the stage again. I heard he does a great cover of Mr. Roboto by Styx.

As for fun. Well, fun. has been my favorite band for two years. I have seen them live multiple times before, but came into this show as a pessimist because of their recent performance on Conan. Their new album is good…but it’s not the fun. I fell in love with. So, when I heard that they would be auto-tuning their live performance, I flipped out. Nate Ruess’ voice is completely natural and absolutely stunning. Why would anyone ruin that with auto-tuning? My nervousness disappeared once Nate belted out the intro to Some Nights. Yes, Nate’s voice was auto-tuned during the end of “Some Nights,” but they did it with class (and that was the only song they auto-tuned). Hearing his voice live is identical to hearing it on an album. I’m not sure students were ready to be wowed by all fun. had to offer.

The show fell perfectly into place.fun. played more of their new stuff than old, including “Carry On,” “All Alone,” “Why am I the One,” and “One Foot.” Oh, did you think I was going to mention “We Are Young”? Why, yes. They did play that. The way fun. approached it was wonderful: they had the ladies sing the “nah nah” part while the gentlemen sang, “Carry me home tonight.” The enthusiastic crowd made the song sound great. It was also the third to last song on the set-list, and 25% of the audience left right after “We Are Young” was performed. If you could define a bandwagon fan, it would be the kid who came to the concert to see this song, record it on his phone, and get the fuck out. I couldn’t believe how disrespectful those students were.

While the newer songs were loved by most of the audience, fun. also played a bunch of songs off of Aim and Ignite including “All the Pretty Girls,” “Barlights,” “At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Used to Be),” and “Walking the Dog.” None of my personal favorites were played (always a bummer), and I only had a few issues with the set (Emily, the only chick on stage, was a bit flat for the first few songs…but picked it up towards the end).

Honestly, I fell in love with this band for a reason: their ability to create honest lyrics and harmonize flawlessly PLUS the fact that they put on a damn good live show.  The only thing I would have asked for would have been for fun. to get off their high horse of “Oh, my song was on Glee…so I’m famous or something” and given the fans a meet-and-greet at the end. Why you no like fans, fun.?