Opinion

Editorial

A chance for redemption

Posted on April 28, 2003, at 12:00 a.m.

Bumstock planners take heat every year for not doing enough or not getting acts that represent students’ interests.

If Fat Joe had performed Saturday night, Bumstock would probably have been well-received since the rest of the weekend went relatively smoothly. Unfortunately, all students are going to remember is the fact that the headlining act didn’t show up. All the hard work Student Entertainment put into planning the event went down the drain because of one act. So what did we learn? If you book a big-name hip-hop artist, it’s pretty much 50-50 as to whether the act will show or not.

But we can’t come down too hard on the organizers. A small group of people worked extremely hard to put this together – free of charge – for students. How can the student body complain about a free two-day music festival? Student Entertainment deserves a fair amount of gratitude for its efforts, but, at the same time, there is always room for improvement.

While many students were probably looking forward to seeing Fat Joe, Student Entertainment should have considered, and remember to consider in the future, its track record for booking rap and hip-hop performers. Without making a broad generalization, these artists don’t appear to be the most reliable, a lesson that should have been learned after the Method Man – Redman fiasco two years ago.

Student Entertainment has a chance at redemption. If the organization uses the $25,000 that was allocated for Fat Joe and puts it into next year’s Bumstock fund, people might forget about this year.

Bumstock has been a UMaine tradition for many years and it needs hard-working people every year to keep it going. But it also needs student support.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2003, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.