M.I.A | ViCE, students prep for year’s biggest concert

Jackson Reeves Assistant Arts Editor

She’s political; she’s a dancehall queen; she’s M.I.A. Most Vassar students have probably heard her music blasted in Matthew’s Mug on the weekends, and now 1,000 of them will see her perform live in the west side of All Campus Dining Center (ACDC) on Friday, April 11, thanks to Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE).

M.I.A. will also bring two opening acts: up-and-coming hip hopper Rye Rye and psychedelic pop group MGMT. Rye Rye, who collaborated with M.I.A. on the main bill’s gun-shot hit “Paper Planes,” will kick off the show at 8 p.m.

M.I.A.: Life and music

Annika Bastacky ’11, who secured a ticket, explained what she loves about M.I.A.’s musical stylings. “She’s just got this crazy style and this crazy persona that’s always changing and always morphing, and I think that’s a big part of what keeps people interested in her,” she said. “Not only is she a musical performer, but she’s a spectacle.”

What’s the story behind M.I.A.’s unapologetic (sometimes shocking) political persona? M.I.A’s back story sheds light on her political music lyrics and her public persona.

Born in London in 1978, Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam (M.I.A.) spent her youth in Sri Lanka.

Her father, Arul Pragasam, was a founder of the Eelam Organization of Students (EROS) in Sri Lanka.

According to The Washington Post, “EROS was one of the first Tamil political organizations—Tamil Hindus being the ethnic minority in Sinhalese Buddhist-dominated Sri Lanka—to seek the creation of an independent state (Tamil Eelam), and it evolved into one of several militant groups engaged in a civil war that is now into its third decade (the most notorious group being the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, better known as Tamil Tigers.” Though M.I.A. was not a member of the Tigers, her debut album, “Arular,” was named after her father.

Growing up in a country facing civil war, M.I.A. became a transnational traveler at a young age. When she was 11, her family (minus her father, who stayed in Sri Lanka) moved back to England and lived in London public housing. Once settled in London, M.I.A. began to listen to the radio and to the music coming out of her neighbors’ windows—introducing her to hip hop and rap.

M.I.A. was a smash hit in the blogosphere and on MySpace before the song “Galang” (2005) even reached radio airwaves. Her sophomore album Kala continued the themes of war-torn politics and pain, with a twist of catchy beats. The song “Paper Planes” references M.I.A being denied entry into the United States in 2006 and subsequently comments about her status as an immigrant: “I fly like paper, get high like planes / If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name / If you come around here, I make ’em all day.”

In early March, M.I.A. released “Paper Planes: Homeland Security Remixes,” which features collaboration with Diplo, Rye Rye and Afrikan Boy, among others.

Location: West side of ACDC

Scheduling M.I.A. to come to Vassar has been a major goal of the ViCE Music Committee, explained Director of ViCE Evan Altshuler ’09.

“There was kind of this resounding push by this committee to book M.IA., and M.I.A. is a very hard person to even get to play colleges at all,” he said. “Turned out she was looking to fill this date, and so we jumped on it.”

Since the open date was only recently solidified, finding a suitable venue for the wildly popular concert was a big task. In the past, big music events, such as the Wyclef Jean concert two years ago, have been staged in Walker Field House, the largest venue on campus since it can house nearly 3,000 people.

Because of scheduling conflicts, however, the concert could not place at Walker. April 11 is also Kids’ Night, an annual benefit for Poughkeepsie community children, which was already scheduled in Walker. M.I.A. was unable to reschedule to another day, Altshuler explained. The concert will take place in the west side, the larger side of ACDC.

“You can plan your concert with the ideal artist and figure out the best location available, which is what we did in this instance, or you can pick the largest location available and then work around its availability,” said Assistant Director of Campus Activities Megan Haberman. “So you’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place in that instance.”

ViCE tried to hold the show in an athletic space such as Walker Field House or the Athletic and Fitness Center.

Staging the concert outdoors was also impossible, as these events still rely upon the availability of Walker as a suitable rain location.

“We are doing it in the next biggest space possible,” Altshuler said. He added that the acoustics in ACDC are much better than in any other on-campus venue, including Walker.

Concerned music fan Kristine DeMaio ’09, who received a ticket from a friend, thought that ViCE should have fought harder to get Walker, even if its acoustics are not as good.

“No matter how important it is for ViCE to get along with the other organizations on campus and whatever happens to be going on in Walker that night, it seems like if you’re going to be pushing one issue ever, the M.I.A. concert is the issue to push,” she said. “And it seems like it would have been worth it even if it took stepping on some toes to get us a bigger, better venue.”

The Town of Poughkeepsie Fire Inspector imposes a 1,000-person capacity on events held in the west side of ACDC. The most recent performance there was De La Soul in November 1996. DJ Diplo performed in the east side of the dining hall in Fall 2005.

Students who have never experienced a concert in the space where they usually eat their lunch were curious about how the space would be adjusted.

“I’m used to eating there, and it’s going to be a big concert there,” Bastacky said. “I’m interested to see how it turns out because I can’t imagine a concert being in there.”

All of the fixtures that make ACDC a dinning room will be removed to make space for the show. “Those vending machines won’t be there; the swipey-cafeteria things won’t be there; the salad bar won’t be there; the tables won’t be there,” Altshuler said.

“It’s just going to be a big kind of convention room. Just a big room, a big long room, and there’s going to be a big stage in it and lights and video screens and a whole bunch of stuff.”

Tickets: Sold out

Of the 1,000 tickets for the event, ViCE set aside 100 complimentary tickets for event staff and 100 tickets for general public sale. Campus Activities sold the other 800 student tickets through the Information Desk on Wednesday, March 26, for $14 with Student ID. Those tickets went on sale at 9 a.m. and sold out in four hours.

The rapidity with which the tickets sold out, Altshuler said, “means that ViCE did its job.”

The M.I.A. concert is the first ViCE event to sell out on the day the tickets went on sale. The only other time this happened at Vassar for any organization’s public event was for the Winston Marsalis lecture held in the Chapel in 1991, as far as Senior Associate Dean of the College Ray Parker could recall.

“I’d rather see 1,000 kids wait in line and be pumped about the show than be giving away tickets at the last possible second for a show that people didn’t really want to go to,” Altshuler said.

Students who were in class during the record sell-out had a second opportunity to buy tickets the following Wednesday, when the remaining 100 tickets were sold online. ViCE ensured that the remaining 100 tickets would not be sold until 3:30 p.m, when there are no scheduled classes. To further enable students to purchase the tickets, the sale was not advertised to the general public outside of Vassar. Those 100 tickets sold out within seconds.

“I went online at 3:30 p.m.—my computer said three-three-zero—and they were already sold out,” Ana Popkowski ’10 lamented. Ultimately, Popkowski, who was in class on March 26, could not obtain a ticket.

“I understand that they didn’t really realize that it would sell out that quickly, but maybe in the future they could sell tickets [at the Information Desk] at 3:30 p.m. [on Wednesdays] just so more people have an opportunity to go right when they go on sale,” Popkowski said.

Allowing each student to purchase more than one ticket made it even more difficult for other students to purchase their own tickets. Altshuler pointed out that some students only got tickets because their friends were able to buy one for them.

“What ViCE tries to do,” Altshuler explained, “is we talk about all those issues and figure what’s going to be the best, what’s going to make the most people at this school happy. You’re always going to get people who aren’t happy with any decision that’s made on this campus, but we’re listening and we’re really trying to accommodate as many people and as many people’s ideas and thoughts on all this stuff as we can.”

Click here for the Misc's exclusive with M.I.A.