Due to the illness of the band’s lead singer, Max Bemis, CUB was forced to cancel the Say Anything concert that was supposed to be held Saturday, Jan. 22 in Kendall Hall. However, students desperate for their pop-punk fix weren’t completely out of luck. Hotspur and Time Will Tell, Say Anything’s opening acts, set up shop in the Rathskeller for a free CUB-sponsored concert on Saturday night at 8 p.m.
Hotspur, a Washington, D.C. based band, made sure to acknowledge Say Anything’s absence. “To the elephant in the room … let’s give a hand to Say Anything,” Joe Mach,
the lead singer and guitarist joked before wishing Bemis a “speedy recovery” from what he described as “explosive diarrhea.”
Mach, keyboardist Dave Trichter, drummer Scott Robinson, bass player Coop Cooper, and their new guitar player, didn’t let the smaller venue bring them down. The band played with the same enthusiasm as it would have on the Kendall stage, delighting the crowd of students gathered on the dance floor.
Hotspur’s set included its songs “Gunfight,” “Hypo-chondria” and “Chand-elier,” among others. Mach encouraged students in the crowd to sing along and clap throughout the show, and they happily obliged. Trichter also showed off his gymnastic skills periodically throughout the set, attempting to do handstands on his keyboard.
Opening up for Hotspur was Time Will Tell, a band featuring the College’s own Cristian Fernandez, junior English
secondary education major, on the bass. The rest of the band consisted of Christopher Ciardiello on the keyboard and vocals, Matt Gontarek and Mike Larned both playing guitar and Mike Tizzano on the drums. After some minor tension between the band and CUB coordinators during the sound check, Time Will Tell kicked off its set with high volume and energy.
Their music and image was typical of the pop-punk genre, with the boys sporting tight jeans and flannel while sounding like the protégé of bands like All Time Low. Not that any of this was a bad thing; its songs were infectious and well-played, and with a little prompting, the dance floor was filled with students.
This was only the second show that Time Will Tell has ever played. “We were expecting the Say Anything show to be the best we did so far … It still is,” Fernandez said, claiming that the Rathskeller audience was the largest the band had ever played for.
Time Will Tell will be releasing its first EP in March, and its members are hoping to win a spot as an act in the upcoming Bamboozle music festival.
