Freshers Week Line Up

[boris]

Not expecting much from st-andrews union... but was dreaming of something better... but come on
did you see how badly she bombed at the eurovision... she sucks... all i can say is take a look at other unions in Scotland... and be ashamed.

pish.

[Bitterandtwisted]

Back when I were a lad we had the awsomeness of Space playing in freshers week. I pitty you poor fools stuck with Pop-Idol-alikes.

I advise freshers to check out Aikman's as soon as. They have no trouble finding good local and student bands.

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[thePontificator]

Quoting Rufus from 12:15, 29th Aug 2006
Lighten up, what exactly do you expect during Freshers' Week?! An impromptu Rolling Stones' gig?

No, just someone who is actually still relevant musically other than some girl who had one hit single and did nothing else with her career when we were all children. We've got the bop all year round for cheese, can't we have a decent live band of some genre other than One-hit-wonder cheese fest?

Hell, even Sandi Thom would be better than this.

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[Malcolm]

Quoting thePontificator from 14:52, 29th Aug 2006
Hell, even Sandi Thom would be better than this.

Pushing it a little, are we?[img]littleicons/grin.gif[/img]

Yeah, like I say, I remember Gina G being a one hit wonder 11-12 years ago. Barrel scraping ensues, methinks.

Sadly, I've no better ideas.

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" ... No-one knows what it's like, to be the bad man, to be the sad man, Behind Blue Eyes ... "

[Insight]

To be fair, this is a small university, with hardly the biggest bank balance. The mere fact that we're able to book "names" is better than nothing. Quite often, bands will charge an amount for one gig that will clear out the budget for all of Freshewrs week entirely.

The bands may not be amazing and to everyone's taste, but the Association is not forcing people to go, and since quite often these nights are mobbed out they are definitely satisifying a sizeable amount of the population.

As for this being a last minute stopgap, I can say for certain that I knew most of the current line-up had been approached by June, from talking to Graeme Hamilton & Lee Kane.

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[Pan]

Quoting boris from 13:22, 29th Aug 2006
Not expecting much from st-andrews union... but was dreaming of something better... but come on
did you see how badly she bombed at the eurovision... she sucks... all i can say is take a look at other unions in Scotland... and be ashamed.

pish.

She came second in eurovision in 1998, actually.

I'm sooo looking forward to seeing her, it's going to be great! I bet more people turn up to see Gina G than did to see Aberfeldy (a band that plays instuments (and are boring)- whoop de doo) last year.

Bring on Gina G! [img]littleicons/grin.gif[/img]

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"Last time you gave me a pie, I cut into it, and birds flew out of it, hitting me in the face and chin. I was confused. It was a trick pie"

[Adam Fellows]

Quoting Pan from 15:46, 29th Aug 2006
She came second in eurovision in 1998, actually.

I'm sooo looking forward to seeing her, it's going to be great! I bet more people turn up to see Gina G than did to see Aberfeldy (a band that plays instuments (and are boring)- whoop de doo) last year.

Bring on Gina G! [img]littleicons/grin.gif[/img]

Sandi Thom is rubbish live - I heard one of her sets on the radio the other day, I was distinctly unimpressed. However, that is by-the-by.

OK most of the people who have talked on this thread must have one thing in common - you're not going to be Freshers this coming September. Freshers Week has had a similar line-up for a good few years now, and I certainly remember when I went to events, it wasn't for the acts primarily, it was to go out to things and have a damn good time with all these new people I was living with in Hall, or going to class with. I barely remember the events themselves, but I *do* remember the chatter between my new friends and just the experience of it all. So yeh Judge Jules was pretty awesome, but honestly, I think the better nights involved the tribal bops where all the people from various halls piled into the Union - the entertainment is just atmosphere, the true fun is beginning your uni experience with a bang.

You may take the opportunity to enjoy the entertainment put on, but let the young new students enjoy themselves with raining on their parade. The reports of Freshers' Week gone-by have been pretty damn positive from the newcomers, so the Students' Association and the DoES (or DoS as was) must be doing something right.

As for the whole "Who like Gina G?" thing, well for all the "nay-sayers" on here, I've have spoken to a lot more people who would love to see Gina G. Misty eyes have often been a reaction, with wistful memories of dancing to Gina G's Eurovision entry at high school bops - just that right amount of school nostalgia v making a right fool of yourself on the dancefloor, surrounded by other like minded people.

Yeh so people might not like Gina G, but as a one off event, you cannot really complain. I'm sure there are plans afoot to have many more band nights throughout the year to cater to various different music tastes. I'm pretty sure RockSoc and the many other alternative music societies will also be doing stuff during or just after Freshers' Week. One night of crazed Gina G based madness v many nights of guitars and other stuff - a fair trade off, IMHO.

As for other bands / artists performing here, yeh we tend to get a couple of people playing here before they became famous - Space, Snow Patrol, but that was before they were famous. They cost a lot less. People like Sandi Thom must cost around £10k to get a performance, and that is without VAT or a rider (see the other thread for details). Sometimes, a good band will actually offer to do a gig here for less than their normal price, but if someone asks them to do a gig where they get paid more, it's not that surprising which set the band (or rather their management) would do. St Andrews doesn't have the same level of expenditure or facilities as other Scottish or UK unions, so really expecting a lot isn't on at all. I'm sure if you care enough, you could ask for previous years' accounts just to see what tight budgets the various departments, like Orientation Entertainment, are meant to work with. If you can do better, run for the DoES job if you're still a student; it'd be a damn sight more productive than people bitching about Orientation Week *before* it happens and people find out that they actually enjoyed themselves.

St Andrews should be proud that Orientation "Week" goes on for 9 days, getting the new students as integrated into the community as the can be; if we were to have one really successful band, the sheer cost to the Students' Association would be massive and Orientation Week would be an awful lot shorter from the Entertainments point-of-view.

The critics on here might prefer that; the new students certainly don't.

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[Colleen]

Sorry, I actually don't care about the rest of the nights because I see that Scott Mills is going to be involved.

Seriously, Union peeps, nice one. I'm actually quite excited now. (Although would be nice to see what sort of prices we'd be looking at paying for each night? Any ideas?)

[Bryn]

Quoting John I from 00:49, 29th Aug 2006
How about a decent band? We had snow patrol a few years back, granted it was before they were big, and in my freshers we even had KT Tunstall. I know our union has a reputation of being cheesy, what with the Bop and that, but I think a line needs drawing somewhere.

I was at Snow Patrol, and Venue 1 was pretty much empty. The people organising these events know what sells out, and that doesn't mean they're not open to trying new things, but we may as well put on events in Orientation that we know are going to be popular!

[Griggsy]

What's this rumour of Tiesto playing a set with Scott Mills about? Bullshit or truth?

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'I run wild in the shadowy jungle of erotic adventures.'

[Griggsy]

Hmmm scrap that last thought. Tiesto's doing a set in Lithuania th night before so it's pretty unlikely he'll come over to dear old St Andys and make an appearance. Oh well I can but dream...

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'I run wild in the shadowy jungle of erotic adventures.'

[Adam Fellows]

Quoting Griggsy from 17:27, 29th Aug 2006
What's this rumour of Tiesto playing a set with Scott Mills about? Bullshit or truth?

Not heard that one myself, but would love it if he did.

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[pea]

For gods sake, what the hell are you guys like? You'd think that the organisers hadn't worked their fucking arses off trying to arrange a full week of events. Like Insight said, getting any names at all is fantastic at a small, relatively unknown (to big name acts getting gigs). We do get some good people playing here, but they can't all be there during Freshers Week, hence big events throughout the term (Zane Lowe, Coolio, KT Tunstall).

Adam is right, this is all about getting the Freshers to have a good time, not returning students. Forget yourselves for a minute and think how excited they'll be that anything at all is going on, let alone "name" things like Scott Mills, comedians and Gina G. Everything will be exciting to them and that's all that counts. I, for one, commend the organisers on planning an excellent week. I'm really looking forward to Scott Mills, the CutUp Boys and Gina G, so I'll be there representing the returning students who are grateful for the hard work that's gone into organising the line up.

Fuck da haterz lol.

Editted for spelling.

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I'm a little pea, I love the sky and the trees...

[thePontificator]

The line up is fine apart from Gina G as far I'm concerned, as we have cheese well and truly covered and if we are going to have pop, could we at least make it vaguely recent?

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[Pan]

No. Recent music is rubbish music. Bring back the 90s!

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"Last time you gave me a pie, I cut into it, and birds flew out of it, hitting me in the face and chin. I was confused. It was a trick pie"

[Malcolm]

Quoting Pan from 23:19, 29th Aug 2006
No. Recent music is rubbish music. Bring back the 90s!

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"Last time you gave me a pie, I cut into it, and birds flew out of it, hitting me in the face and chin. I was confused. It was a trick pie"

I'd say the same about the 80's... New Order are still bloody class now, but listen to their old stuff. Sure blows me away every time.

Also, you got Echo and the Bunnymen, Duran Duran, the later years of Supertramp, et al.

Hell, I might even go to one of the retro nights!

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" ... No-one knows what it's like, to be the bad man, to be the sad man, Behind Blue Eyes ... "

[Adam Fellows]

Quoting Malcolm from 00:00, 30th Aug 2006


I'd say the same about the 80's... New Order are still bloody class now, but listen to their old stuff. Sure blows me away every time.

Also, you got Echo and the Bunnymen, Duran Duran, the later years of Supertramp, et al.

Hell, I might even go to one of the retro nights!

To be fair, so many of these groups seem to be enjoying the retrofever that they seem to be getting together again (if they had ever split up in the first place), so their gigs would cost a fortune to run as well.

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[Dave the Explosive Newt]

Quoting thePontificator from 22:51, 29th Aug 2006
The line up is fine apart from Gina G as far I'm concerned, as we have cheese well and truly covered and if we are going to have pop, could we at least make it vaguely recent?

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The Vengaboys were looked at but we had to pull out in the end as they proved too expensive. The whole aim here was to have someone relatively famous who wasn't going to just do 3 minutes on stage (Call on me girls, anyone? And they weren't even that fit ffs).

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[Pan]

Quoting Malcolm from 00:00, 30th Aug 2006

Quoting Pan from 23:19, 29th Aug 2006
No. Recent music is rubbish music. Bring back the 90s!

I'd say the same about the 80's... New Order are still bloody class now, but listen to their old stuff. Sure blows me away every time.

Also, you got Echo and the Bunnymen, Duran Duran, the later years of Supertramp, et al.

Hell, I might even go to one of the retro nights!

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You have a point. Bring back the 80s and the 90s!

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"Last time you gave me a pie, I cut into it, and birds flew out of it, hitting me in the face and chin. I was confused. It was a trick pie"

[Cain]

if this line up is for the freshers, and gina G was at eurovision in 1998, then wouldn't the freshers be about 9-10 when she was 'big'?

would they be a bit young at the time to remember her fondly?

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I hold an element of surprise