It was August 24th, 2013 and I was making my first re-entry to Penn State night life in four years along with four other members of the KeyPAP. Up to this point in the night our entertainment had been mostly based on several well placed Busch Lights. It was still very early, but if I was being honest with myself I would have to admit I was starting to feel like I was fighting an uphill battle against disappointment. Only 4 years removed from my final year at Penn State I felt that we would again blend seamlessly with the crowd, but, alas, I was mistaken. I could chalk it up to the fact that we were slightly overdressed for the occasion boasting several full suits and one tuxedo, but I feel the disconnect was based on more than aesthetics alone. I think that when we reminisce on our past we tend to look back on a romanticized version of reality that often gives us a preference for our generation over another. Even with this in mind I couldn’t help but think I walked back into a cheapened version of the world I once was a part of.
We walked into Bar Bleu at around 7:00 that night. There were many people there but no one looked as if they were having a genuinely good time. It seemed as if the overabundant energy that lies native in the heart of the youthful had been suffocated by the instant gratification of Tinder and denim hotpants. I still had some hope left in me, a dreamer as I tend to be, that if we weren’t going to get any substance out of this experience we would surely dive head first into a raucous crowd in the downstairs dance area.
Wrong yet again.
We walked downstairs into a sea of people binge drinking to house music with their faces buried into their phones. There came a moment in the night when one member of our group ordered a water and nearly fell asleep at the table (this, as it turns out, is a story for another day).
I can’t say that I was excited when I saw a band setting up on stage. I had my dancing shoes on and I couldn’t bear the thought of having my eardrums blown out by 15 shit Nickleback covers in a row. But I gave them a chance. What followed is the reason I’m typing this at my computer right now.
The band known as Big Feast started out slow, they didn’t come out with guns blazing, they eased the crowd into it like only real artists can. A zephyr of blues and funk delicately mingled with rock and roll floated through the musty bar air and sidled its way into my cochleae with a smoothness my ears had never before experienced. I found my spirit roused from the sleep it was put into by the impersonal setting we were in. No more was I concerned with my surroundings as I was hypnotized by the sounds filling the air. My dancing shoes ached to satisfy the purpose for which they were put on as they tapped unconsciously to the music. I was compelled by the funk, summoned by the satiny smooth vocals to go out to the dance floor alone. The truest form of dancing is the kind where the music controls the dancer and bends him or her to the will of the song. I gave in, I the marionette controlled on high by the puppeteers named Big Feast.
And what a dance it was. The drummer controlled my feet, coaxing out wild movements and footwork never brandished in public before. The bass player while working in solitude behind the scenes produced rhythms that coursed through my veins in a whirlwind of funk-filled hip gyrations. I would not describe the guitar solos as “face melting” since I would consider this an insult. The guitar playing was not the all too familiar cacophony produced by mindlessly racing up and down a pre-determined scale, but a symphony of perfectly placed notes that played on the emotions with a delicate touch that squired the spirit of the listener through a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows. The vocals floated on top light and airy as a cloud upon Happy Valley, and were just as capable of delivering thunderous devastation when the moment was right.
I give you this analysis as my feeble attempt to describe the music of that night, but to describe the music in its separate components is an abortion. It is the same as describing the way a cake tastes by describing the eggs, milk, and sugar separately. When the cake is made its ingredients no longer exist, only the final product. This indescribable sound infected me with a dancing disease and once I set it free the disease went airborne. The discouraged group of young, suppressed students got up and savaged the dance floor! They spilled their drinks, relinquished self-consciousness, and danced for no ulterior motive other than to dance. The euphoria that filled the room bordered on a collective manic episode.
That night Big Feast changed the course of our evening and etched an unforgettable memory in our minds. For that the KeyPAP would like to honor them with the incredibly distinguished honor of being the 2013 KeyPAP Band of the Year, the first artist to receive this coveted award. It is not necessarily an annual award; it will only be presented in years where a band strikes us worthy enough to carry our stamp of approval. Congratulations to Big Feast.
