Living next to a concert venue: The pros, the cons, and the shows you’ll see me at this year

The O'Reilly Family Event Center, courtesy drury.edu

I know I reiterate this all the time, but being a student Drury has more than its fair share of benefits, and living right down the lane from a brand-new, fancy-pants, environmentally friendly event center is no exception. Granted, it’s one I didn’t acknowledge as a benefit until recently, but the O’Reilly Family Event Center is, in the eyes of many, quickly taking over Springfield as the area concert venue to be seen at and booked for. This can only be good.

In general, Springfield is a pretty good place to catch good live music at. Thanks to a smart move by a student group at MSU, I was lucky enough to see Motion City Soundtrack at the Shrine Mosque my freshman year. Although that’s probably the biggest music artist I’ve seen in the area, I’ve also seen some of my favorite underground bands live at dive bars downtown; not to mention the local music fare is always worth the benefit of the doubt. When music talent rolls through Springfield, it’s an event that often goes largely unpromoted, which means fans will get a more personal experience from the show and are also less likely to be accidentally pummeled by an avalanche of mosh-pit die-hards. Death by mosh-pit isn’t ideal to most.

Just a few months until I see these guys in real life, not just digitally.

Despite Springfield’s so-so success in bringing the good stuff to music fans here, the introduction of the O’Reilly Family Event Center has likely changed that forever. So far, the OFEC has brought in artists such as the Pointer Sisters, Dierks Bentley, that one guy from Hootie and the Blowfish, and soon the Avett Brothers and Kelly Clarkson. Heck, we almost had Aretha Franklin (hey, Aretha, FYI- we’re still bitter). Until this point in time, I had thumbed my nose at all those visiting artists. However, a few weeks ago we heard a rumor that, unlike 95% of all other rumors that circulate Drury’s campus, turned out to be true: Incubus has been booked to play at the OFEC in May. Needless to say, Incubus was one of those bands for me back in the day; I pretty much worshipped them. Seeing them live is a very very belated dream come true, so I’ve purchased floor tickets. Very expensive floor tickets, might I add. Good discounts are lost on those that attend school at Drury and want to go to these shows, but I don’t blame anyone for that because business is business. Still, it’s a con.

Besides Incubus, which I’m excited about, and Kelly Clarkson, which I’m neutral about (I always took issue with the fact that she allowed the use of ‘U’ in ‘Since U Been Gone’ instead of the more phonetically correct ‘You’), I’ve been deciding whether or not to attend another concert hitting the OFEC in late April, the Campus Consciousness Tour with J. Cole, a Grammy-nominated rapper. The cool thing about this tour is that it’s entirely environmentally friendly, so while Drury gets brownie points for being the only legitimate mid-western school to book this tour, we get free stuff and free knowledge about being more green. Some of us are geeky enough to get excited about it. As for J. Cole, I have research to do in deciding whether I’d be interested in seeing him perform, but it generally seems like a great opportunity for students in the area. You can read more about this tour and the other concert dates here.

Now all I have to do is hope forevermore that either 1) Coachella will be moved to the OFEC as some inexplicable act of God, or 2) the Foo Fighters, my favorite band ever in the entire universe, will come and play at the OFEC. The likelihood of that happening is about as probable as Dave Grohl himself picking me up for the show in a limousine, but I can get over it, as I got to see them live once already in Memphis- long, long, long ago. Still, if you’re reading this, Dave, I’m holding out hope for you. Also, I like your haircut lately.

As a final note, if anyone with connections is reading this as well, there are a few other insanely talented artists I’ve been jamming to lately that would just make my little heart go pitter-patter if they were booked for the OFEC: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, The Civil Wars, and Sleigh Bells, to name a few. I can make an Excel spread sheet or something if that’s more preferable… Please?