The Daily Barometer: Thousands of students and Willamette Valley locals filled the Memorial Union quad Saturday night for the first annual DAM JAM and headliner Mike Posner.
How The West Was Won, the winning band from Friday’s Battle of the Bands, was the first opening act. The Flavr Blue, a band from Seattle that had been praised on social media by both Macklemore and SOL, and has played at Flat Tail in previous years, followed How The West Was Won’s performance.
Emily Dumble, a junior at Philomath High School, said that despite the cold, DAM JAM was “just a cool environment.”
Cristian Lackner, a freshman in mechanical engineering, added that beyond Posner’s ability to pump up the crowd, the opening bands were impressive.
“I’ve been to other concerts before where the warm-up bands weren’t good,” he said. “This warm-up band was really good.”
In all, students benefited from the opportunity to have fun before the last two weeks of spring term.
“It’s really fun but it’s relaxing and unwinding at the same time,” Lackner said.
The show, which was previously known as the Flat Tail Music Festival, condensed the amount of opening acts and focused on finding a bigger headliner for students.
Coordinators from the Memorial Union Program Council wanted to restructure the annual event to better reflect the student coordinators and audience.
Madeline Golden, the MUPC coordinator for DAM JAM, said MUPC coordinators sought to change the layout of the event. Where Flat Tail had always been a music festival running from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., DAM JAM is more of a concert.
“We realized that students don’t really come to those first few hours,” Golden said.
So the MUPC condensed the show, opened the gates at 7 p.m., started the music at 8 p.m. and only had two opening acts.
Posner was selected after the MUPC’s artist consultant was able to talk him down in price to fit within MUPC’s budget.
“We got pretty lucky,” Golden said. “He’s a pretty big name and he’s perfect for college campuses.”
At the Q&A session with Posner, which took place in the MU ballroom at 4 p.m. Saturday, Posner expressed his own excitement for playing at OSU.
“My team and I were super grateful for you having us here,” he said. “We love playing shows like this. I’ve done a million shows at colleges, and at some point, I always have interactions with some of the kids after the shows and sometimes they would be as meaningful to me as the shows themselves.”
At the Q&A, a small crowd of students and media had the chance to speak with Posner as he shared his experiences, his advice and a few of his upcoming songs.
When asked about his writing style and what he values, Posner said he had learned to accept inspiration when it comes to him, always write the truth instead of coming up with story, and listen to his gut.
“In my experience, my gut, my heart, has always been the right way,” Posner said. “You guys all got power too; it’s just sort of realizing that you have it — that’s the tricky thing. It’s just realizing that and doing that for yourself.”
