Jonas Patlan
Iowa State student run radio station, 88.5 KURE, hosted a free entry, all ages, concert at the Memorial Union on campus, this previous Wednesday, September 20th. The annual KURE Fest featured two local band/artists, and 2 bigger name band/artists.
The doors to the show opened at 5:30 p.m., approximately 30 minutes early so that the crew could prep the stage. First to play was a local group from Des Moines by the name of The Fuss. Personally this may have been my favorite part of the show.
The Fuss is an indie/alternative band, still a newly emerging band the fuss played six or seven songs from their self titled debut album. I enjoyed their performance particularly because of the way they interacted with the crowd.
It was enjoyable to see them play on stage, almost as if the band forgot they were playing for a crowd. You could tell where the song was supposed to end and where they decided to continue playing in their harmonized synchrony.
My only business there was to hear The Fuss and the headlined artist Noname Gypsy. There were two bands in-between the opener and the headline. first after The Fuss played Gloom Balloon, another Des Moines artist, followed by a group from Austin, TX called Ringo Deathstarr.
Both in-between artists were, to say the least, tolerable. Gloom Balloon was very interactive with the crowd, so much so that he was not on stage while he preformed but in the audience running around eccentrically singing to individuals.
While I had fun and was actually very active with the artist being a participant in his performance act, his music is not necessarily my cup of tea. In terms of being at the event, I got a better impression from Gloom Balloon than I did from Ringo Deathstarr
Ringo Deathstarr was not a good performance. Before the concert I gave a listen to the artist that were going to be performing, at which point I was excited for Ringo Deathstarr. The group makes good music, it is a little heavy to be considered indie but it is definitely alternative, maybe alternative rock.
When performing live there was too much sound coming out at once, the instruments were not clear enough to hear a melody, or rather anything else but overwhelming drumming. By the end of their performance I was more focused on the pain in my ankles from standing for so long, than the music they were playing.
I was growing impatient to see Noname by the end of Ringo Deathstarr, but before long her instrumentals all came out on stage and started playing the beginning of a song. Noname is a rap artist who often features with other big name artists.
Her lyrical flow sits on any beat with a low bass and soft drums. She collaborates with many artists that I would consider as my favorites.
KURE hosted a good show, im grateful that they put together a show like this for free. Their information table had merchandise, event t-shirts, a raffle, and social media advertisement. Overall I was satisfied with the production, and will likely attend more events that KURE puts together.