By Rock Comedian Brian Smith
Stop two on TheCampusSocialite.com Blitz and Beatz Tour was bound to be an unbelievable weekend. We were heading to Happy Valley; the home of huge fraternity houses, cheap beer, Joe-PA, and beautiful college girls. Upon our arrival, Penn State did not disappoint…except for the weather.
The drive to State College can be described in one word: “miserable”. We were coming from two days off in New York City, and we couldn’t get out of the way of the monsoon that was covering much of the northeast. After seeing a truck jackknife, driving 20 miles per hour for a 30 mile stretch on Route 80, and three pit stops, the supposed four hour drive turned into a seven hour nightmare. We safely arrived in State College to the tune of two inches of rainfall. Not bad considering we were producing an outdoor show in less than 24 hours. After a brief production meeting, a few beers in our hotel room, and some Late Night Pizza, we mailed it in.
We hit the world famous Waffle Shop for our Friday breakfast, met up with Jake Wagner, our concert coordinator at Penn State, and headed over to our venue, the Delta Upsilon fraternity house, to commence production. The DU house boasted a massive lawn that could have well exceeded our 1,500 person suggested capacity. The production team was already building the stage, the fence had already spanned the perimeter of the property, and the company delivering the Port-o-potty’s was trying to figure out the best location for people to bust their bladders.
The beauty of producing a concert at a fraternity house is the ample amount of pledges that will work for you because, well, they have to. It was nice having 36 “workers” at your disposal. Pledges were briefed on their responsibilities which ranged from hanging corporate branded sponsorship banners, assisting production in building the stage, and making market runs to fulfill Super Mash Bros., G. Curtis, and my Riders. Other than my cell phone deciding to pull an epic FAIL on me for the duration of the weekend at 2:30 PM on Friday, the events leading up to the concert couldn’t have gone more smoothly.
Super Mash Bros. and G. Curtis arrived at the venue approximately 90 minutes before doors opened. They are all as easy-going as they are talented, and it was such a pleasure to work with them. There were some nerves before the show that it might get shut down, as we were producing a massive concert in the middle of a residential neighborhood, but we managed to get only 1 noise complaint, and we had no issues. I took the stage at 7:30 to get the crowd going. After a “We are Penn State” chant, a short speech about the importance of Adderall during Midterms, and a performance of The Adderall Song I introduced G. Curtis to the energetic crowd. G. to none of our surprises performed an incredible set, singing crowd favorites like “Falling Up” and “Out of This World”! He had a girl in the front row tie his shoe for him while performing. Classic! After giving out free T-shirts and copies of his debut EP “Falling Up” to the crowd, G. Curtis left the stage to a crowd wanting nothing but more from the young R&B rising star!
At 8:05, I jumped back on the stage to reveal my newest college track “The Penn State Song” to the Happy Valley Faithful. The crowd caught on pretty quickly, and the song served its purpose; to keep the energy alive before announcing Super Mash Bros. to the stage. After a few jokes, the stage was set to bring out Super Mash Bros. Nick and Ethan took the stage, and put on an incredible performance blowing the minds of all 1300+ students in attendance. With two huge projection screens boasting videos perfectly paired with the mashups of popular songs of all different genres spanning several musical decades, Super Mash Bros. had the crowd dancing, jumping, and crowd surfing throughout their entire set! Some highlights from the set were the guys giving out two dozen roses to ladies in the crowd, their on-stage humor, and of course, their song “Bruce Willis Was Dead the Whole Time” which includes a clip of the song “Zombie Nation”, which naturally had the Penn State crowd going crazy!
- Photo By Kielan Prince – Photography Major At Penn State University
After the show, The Blitz and Beatz Tour crew went to four fraternity after parties, and found Penn State knows how to throw down! Massive amounts of beer and alcohol were at your disposal with wild dance parties going on in the middle of the party areas. There is no secret why this school is consistently in the top five every year in the number one party school rankings! After a run to Canyon Pizza at who knows what hour for some more late-night dollar slices, we called it a night in the wee hours of the morning.
The next day was back to work setting up a viewing party at the DU fraternity house, as we broadcasted the Penn State @ Iowa game on a huge projection screen in the Great Hall of the fraternity house. We had approximately 200 college coeds hanging out on couches in a room flooded with banners from our corporate sponsors. We gave out Campus Socialite Blitz and Beatz tour T-shirts which you can see below. Yes, that is none other than the original Campus Socialite, Joe Paterno. After the game, we explored some other parties, the legendary Gingerbread Man (G-Man) for some “mind erasers”, and hit up Canyon Pizza one last time.
We didn’t want to leave State College, but everyone associated with The Blitz and Beatz Tour now knows exactly why they call Penn State “Happy Valley”! Luckily for us, the drive back to New York was a breeze, as we recapped the weekend in the tour van, and listened to NFL games the entire ride. We take off for University of Michigan this week, as we plan for Round 2 with Super Mash Bros., G. Curtis, and the rest of the Blitz and Beatz Team.
Check out pictures from the Blitz and Beatz Tour’s invasion of Penn State University HERE.
Our article from Onward State
