Though the Yale College Council unveiled the full lineup for this year’s Spring Fling Thursday, students said they still remain most excited about Macklemore.
According to a promotional video the YCC posted on the Spring Fling website Thursday afternoon, independent artist Best Coast, DJ RL Grime and band Grouplove will join Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at this year’s Spring Fling on April 29. The YCC announcement came more than a month after the News reported on Feb. 9 that Macklemore will headline Spring Fling and a few weeks after the News published that Grouplove would also perform. The majority of 15 students interviewed said they are most looking forward to Macklemore and are not as familiar with the other bands.
“I love Macklemore — he’s going to be nasty,” Sam Shleifer ’15 said. “I don’t know the other groups that well, but I don’t think the back-up performers will matter that much. It’s going to be a great time.”
Indie band Grouplove is best known for the hit song “Tongue Tied,” and the band’s first single, hit song “Colours,” rose to No. 12 on the Modern Rock charts. Best Coast — also an indie artist — has released hit songs including “Boyfriend,” “Our Deal” and “Crazy for You.”
The Spring Fling Committee has been planning the concert since the beginning of the school year. Members of the committee met with the Women’s Center in October to discuss sex and gender sensitivity issues surrounding Spring Fling artists and brainstormed ways the committee could choose performers that would not make any students uncomfortable.
The YCC declined to release the results of the October Spring Fling Survey, which asked students to rate their top choices for bands they wanted to see perform at the event in April. Spring Fling Committee Chair Ethan Karetsky ’14 said the process is much more complicated than just taking the survey’s top results and recruiting those bands.
“I think a lot of people don’t think much about how complicated a task it is to select artists that are affordable, appealing to as many Yalies as possible, complement each other, willing to perform and still within our budget,” YCC Events Director Bryan Epps ’14 said. “It’s a challenge every year, and I think we’ve pulled together a great lineup for Spring Fling 2013.”
Nine of 15 students interviewed said Macklemore is the only performer they know from this year’s lineup, and five of the students had looked up songs by the other bands after watching the YCC’s video this afternoon.
Four students said they are excited about the number and variety of bands to be featured at Spring Fling this year.
Jon Silverstone ’15 said he thinks the YCC selected performers who appeal to a variety of music tastes.
Doors open for this year’s Spring Fling at 2:30 p.m.