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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

arts

WIUX brings sun, fun and music

With temperatures in the mid 60s, a sun high in the sky and plenty of open grass to lay a blanket on, IU students and Bloomington locals alike gathered for an afternoon of music that stretched into the evening.

WIUX, with support from Union Board, hosted the 2015 Culture Shock music festival from 1 to 10 p.m. Saturday in Dunn Meadow. The event featured live music from local and national acts. A number of local vendors were also present.

A semicircle of vendor booths set up in the western section of Dunn Meadow by Indiana Avenue faced the stage and created an enclosed area for spectators to ?mill about.

Some tried their luck at walking across a slackline set up by one festival-goer, others danced with hula hoops spinning around their waists and more napped or talked on blankets spread throughout the meadow.

Over 1,200 people are estimated to have attended Culture Shock throughout the day, WIUX Special Events Co-Director Brendan Biesen said. After more than a year of planning, he said it’s incredible to see everything come together.

Darlan Farias and Carolina Vega, exchange students from Brazil, said they came to the festival to meet up with a friend. Farias said he thinks the festival is a great place to have fun and meet new people.

“I think it’s pretty cool because you can see other people and other cultures,” Vega said.

The vendor booths at Culture Shock included everything from local restaurants to local record labels.

WIUX Special Events Co-Director Ben Wittkugel said they had more vendors this year than in the past and were able to represent more Bloomington businesses.

Despite everything else going on, the main attraction of the event was ?the music.

The local and regional performers included Vista Kid Cruiser, Dietrich Jon, Thee Tsunamis, Sirius Blvck, Oreo Jones and Mike Adams At His Honest Weight.

Dietrich Jon frontman Diederik van Wassenaer said it’s great to finally be able to perform at Culture Shock after living in ?Bloomington for six years.

After forecasts earlier in the week predicted rain on Saturday, the sunshine and warm weather was “a small miracle,” he said.

Cadien Lake James, a vocalist and guitarist in the Chicago band Twin Peaks, echoed van Wassenaer’s feelings about Saturday’s weather.

“I love the sun,” he said onstage to the crowd. “I love the weather. I love y’all.”

Other national acts at Saturday’s event were Montreal band TOPS and California band Foxygen, the event’s headliner.

While all the other performers played with the sun still shining, Foxygen didn’t get started until dark.

Stagehands helped set up the band’s instruments and props.

A picture of Jesus hung from the keyboard. Holiday lights were strung over ?everything.

At nearly 9 p.m., Foxygen began their theatrical set featuring a sword fight between one of the guitarists and the bass guitarist as well as two fake-out endings to the performance.

Between two songs, the band’s official members Sam France and Jonathan Rado reminisced about their high school days when they would make anyone who wanted to sit with them at lunch snort the contents of beef jerky ?preservative packets.

The crowd tested the strength of the barrier between them and the stage throughout Foxygen’s performance, making especially powerful surges whenever France jumped off the stage to sing on their level.

Jeff Beveridge, a senior information technology support developer at IU, said he tries to go to Culture Shock every year and has probably been to 90 percent of the festivals since he was a student on campus in the early 1990s.

“I’m kind of a music fanatic,” Beveridge said. “I just hope it keeps going.”

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