By popular demand, Biola University’s Associated Students’ Social Board has invited musical guests mewithoutYou and Eisley to play this spring at Biola University.

The concert is scheduled to be held Saturday, May 14 on McNally Field. Tickets are $15 and will be sold in front of the Caf and in the Associated Students office two weeks before the show.

mewithoutYou highly requested on campus

According to senior Brittnee Miller, Social Board chair, students have been requesting to have mewithoutYou perform at Biola for at least a year.

“They were the most requested band I heard from students, and [it] was also within our budget,” said senior Social Board representative and Eddy coordinator, Sam Santos.

“MewithoutYou has definitely been on the top of our lists for a while, especially after a group of Biola students created a Facebook group requesting them to play,” Santos said.

Budget allows second band

After booking mewithoutYou, there was room in the budget to invite another band to play as well, according to Santos.

“The band Eisley was chosen to provide balance,” Santos said. “MewithoutYou only took about half of our concert budget, so we all agreed that we should have sort of a dual headlining show to broaden the appeal.”

“They tend to appeal to girls, yet their style/genre wouldn’t clash with mewithoutYou,” Santos said.

Show to benefit Invisible Children

The show will also be a benefit concert for the organization Invisible Children. According to its website, Invisible Children is dedicated to getting the voices of children affected by war in East Africa heard through documentaries.

“I was wanting it to be a benefit concert and a student who was interning there made it possible,” Miller said.

According to Miller, mewithoutYou and Eisley are popular among students because of their lyrics and their motives behind performing music.

Students react positively to bands

“I am definitely impressed with Biola’s choice of bands,” sophomore Kari MacLurg said. “I never thought I would see a band play [such as Eisley] that I’ve been listening to since middle school. In the last year, I’ve been rediscovering my love for them.”

“I’m super stoked. It will be interesting when mewithoutYou will talk after the show,” freshman Josh Suaverdez said. “Their faith is really interesting. Their faith is kind of Muslim because the lead singer grew up in a Muslim home. If you listen to their lyrics it’s interesting. There’s one song where he says Allah over and over again.”

Suaverdez was referencing the song “Allah, Allah, Allah” from mewithoutYou’s fourth album released in 2009 titled “It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All a Dream! It’s Alright.”

mewithoutYou deals with various religions

MewithoutYou is a rock band from Philadelphia, Pa. made of vocalist Aaron Weiss, guitarist Michael Weiss, bassist Jehanian and drummer Rickie Mazotta. Their music is dominated mostly by spoken lyrics that explore many themes of the religions of Judiasm, Christianity and Islam. MewithoutYou has been described by many listeners as “Christian indie rock.”

In an interview for an April 2007 article in online magazine, Busted Halo, the band’s lead singer, Aaron Weiss denounced being confined to the label of a Christian band.

Eisley reappearing at Biola

Eisley is a band composed of siblings Chauntelle, Sherri, Stacy and Weston DuPree, and their cousin Garron DuPree. They originate from Tyler, Texas, and have been playing music for about 10 years. Eisley has toured with other bands like Coldplay, Snow Patrol and The Fray. On March 1, the group released their third LP titled, “The Valley.”

“Eisley has, in fact, played at Biola before,” said Andy Adelewitz, Eisley’s publicist. Eisley appeared at Biola in April of 2006. This time around, according to Adelewitz, “they will definitely be playing songs from their new album.”

Concerts bring outsiders to campus

“I think events like these are awesome, because it opens up an opportunity for everyone to be invited to Biola’s campus,” Suaverdez said. I actually found out what Biola was when I came to the Mae concert here.”

Santos said he remembers coming to Eddys and concerts at Biola before even attending.
Santos suggested bringing mewithoutYou to Biola about a year ago.

Planning involves many logistics

The spring concert has taken months of planning and preparation.

“Brittnee Miller, the social board chair, has done practically all of the grunt work with booking dates, reserving the location and getting contracts signed,” Santos said. “Students who are stoked on this show ought to tip their hats to her.”

According to senior Linzy Spann, AS vice president of marketing and communications, the total cost of bringing the bands to Biola could not be released because of contracts with the bands.
“We still need to figure out some of the logistics with checking tickets and making sure people aren’t jumping the fence,” Santos said.

The concert is going to be open to the public and the social board is expecting a good turnout.
“It’s difficult to determine how many people will show up, especially because we are not permitted to formally advertise off campus,” Santos said. “I’m thinking there will be anywhere between 800 to 1,200 people there.”

AS expects tickets to sell very fast because of the number of students who have expressed excitement over seeing their favorite bands play live.