Indie rock musicians gather for a night of performances in the Memorial Union hosted by the Musician’s Guild. PHOTO CREDIT: Erin Brown | Staff Reporter.
The University of Rhode Island’s Musician’s Guild set the Memorial Union on fire at their first concert of the spring semester last Saturday, March 5.
The Guild hosted artists BedBug, Harrison Dolan & the Astronauts and Art Slob, all of which are based in the northeast. Cameron Hart, the president of the Musician’s Guild, expressed excitement for the concert.
“It’s our first show and I think it’s going to be a really good show,” he said.
BedBug is an indie artist based out of Boston who makes music for fun when they are not in grad school.
This was BedBug’s first show at URI and their first time on a college campus since 2020. They are normally supported by a band at shows, but for their show on Saturday, they performed solo with help from a synthesizer.
At the end of their set, BedBug encouraged the audience to connect with them if anyone was a musician, as they like to throw backyard concerts.
The leader and namesake of the second band, Harrison Dolan is a URI alum and was a member of the Musician Guild all four years of his time here. He was accompanied by his friends “the astronauts” whose real names are Craig Browning, Kevin Dubois, Tyler Katz and Andrew Lee respectively.
“Please give Musician’s Guild more funding because they deserve it and so do the musicians that travel so far away,” Dolan said.
The band had the audience going crazy when they performed covers of “Sunflower” by Rex Orange County and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. People were being picked up and carried by the crowd as they spun around the atrium.
The music was pumping and the audience was moshing when one of the speakers started smoking and had to be raced out of the building by multiple members of the club.
But technical difficulties didn’t stop Harrison Dolan & the Astronauts in the middle of their set. After chaos settled down and all the windows were opened, Harrison Dolan sang the rest of the set without a microphone.
“I thought the second band handled the blown speaker really well and it created a unique experience when the lead singer came out into the audience since his mic wasn’t working,” Kat Stearley, a junior who attended the event, said.
Amar Ahmad, also known as Art Slob, is a musician and a film student at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
“When I was thirteen years old, I was in a Facebook group with Cam and he asked me to play his house so I’ve been playing shows with him ever since,” Ahmad said.
Hart helped play the drums while Ahmad sang. Ahmad was also supported by other Musician’s Guild members Matt Delaney on bass and George Richter on viola. Ahmad also brought on Nora Lyons for vocals and Lucy Phillips for piano and vocals.
The artists could all pick what they wanted to be displayed as they performed. ArtSlob chose a video of Roblox being played and BedBug went with a classic Pokemon fight that was titled “the longest fight ever” on Youtube.
Audience members loved the concert despite the craziness caused by the speaker damage.
“I like the atmosphere of the concerts musicians guild puts on,” sophomore Caroline Oetting added.
To stay up to date with the Musician’s Guild and future events that are coming up this semester, check out their Instagram @urimusiciansguild where events are advertised.