On Saturday night, PSU’s Spring Fling was in full effect. The concert, taking place down at the PSU football field, made you entering the premises on a winding path where concert goers were greeted by two yellow jacket sporting security personnel who reminded you to have your pink event bracelets and student I.D.’s ready in order to gain entrance. Before entering the fenced off area where the concert is being held, attendees were told to separate depending on gender into two separate lines to be frisked. A security guard asked for the presentation of a pink bracelet (a second-long flash of it from a good five feet away suffices) before directing individuals down a rope-path to be frisked. For males, the frisking process consists of individuals “emptying” their pockets of all contents and raising their arms up so that a guard can pat down their legs and torso before finally being waved to enter.
DJ Pocahontas (winner of Battle of the Bands the night before) was the first to perform as the sun was setting on the field. Accompanying the DJ were two visual performers, a guy wearing sunglasses and a cowl reminiscent of 1960’s Batman and another individual wearing a rubber horse head and sporting a Kool-Aid shirt that he sheds later in the performance to reveal another underneath reading “Smoke Meth, Worship Satan.” The visual assassin duo of Adam West and Horse-head Guy posed and dance about the stage while DJ Pocahontas churned out Trap-ish beats that were laced with samples ranging from the Austin Powers theme song to the New England summertime television staple Water Country jingle. His stage show was an amusing one with a page ripped out of the Odd Future handbook.
Across the field was an inflatable bouncy game and the annual Spring Fling beer tent. The event staff did a superb job in making sure that no one under twenty one gained entry by checking I.D.’s multiple times before an individual was even able to order a beer and the section easily had the heaviest security presence of the entire event. When an individual, under the impression that the bartenders stationed twenty feet away would serve him no questions asked, made a daring (intoxicated) attempt to break through the I.D. verification section, he was quickly subdued and evacuated from the premises. Security spent the event doing its best to detain event goers that were obviously a hazard to themselves and others. One guard’s entire job seemed to be to walk along the perimeter shining a flashlight into the woods to deny any overly ambitious troublemakers from trying to enter through a cheaper alternative route. The guards did their best to police the outside of the crowd during the main event, but the inner area of the pit was something of a free for all.
As the sun set and the temperature dropped the EDM duo Coyote Kisses took the stage and cued up an impressive light show to go along with their set. Their set lasted about thirty minutes and the duo promised that Rusko would be on shortly before exiting the stage. Unlike past years where Spring Fling main acts have hyped up their entrance, Rusko instead opted to discretely walk on unannounced. One could assume that he did this with the hopes that the start of his set would prompt an ecstatic response, but it’s a little hard to look like you deserve applause when you’re pushing buttons to start up your equipment.
Having worked with artists like from M.I.A. to Santigold, Rusko is a seasoned DJ whose hour long set was a relentless storm of electronic aura. The show consisted of Rusko’s beats woven through samples of popular songs (DMX’s “Party Up” probably got the biggest response from the crowd) to which the crowd parties to in united chaos. Being an EDM artist, the crowd had taken it upon itself to adopt popular aspects of dance music culture. The crowd was full of individuals sporting glowsticks and other brightly lit garb. One girl along with cat ears, a white tube top, and a pink tutu was also sporting gloves with lights in the fingertips. She walked up to random people leaning into their ear and asking them something inaudible. What exactly she asked them was anyone’s guess, but depending on their yes or no answer she either walks away or begins to dance and wave her hands in front of their face, the lights in her fingertips creating streaks in the air that flash in the strobe. Bottles of water were occasionally flung out into the audience either meant to anger the rest of the crowd or to create an effect. The event had its share of crowd surfers throughout the night whom the crowd was more than happy to carry. One or two mosh pits temporarily broke out.
Rusko screamed into a microphone every once in a while to encourage the crowd to continue, promising that he’d keep playing until he was forced to stop. After about an hour and a half a crew member strolled up to the DJ and whispered something in his ear. “Alright, I’m almost done up here,” he said. “Go back, smoke a blunt, and good luck on all your finals and other things,” he finished, in an almost posh English accent, before continuing his set for a final five minutes. After the show was over, the crowd was let out through the side of the P.E. center. The walk out was sobering. The cold air set in after being huddled in close quarters for so long. The attendees carried on with their night. The crowd was in dance party mode at the moment, but by the next morning they would undoubtedly be ready for next year.