O.A.R. to perform for Little 500

This year’s Union Board performer for Little 500 week will be rock band O.A.R., said Union Board concert director Adam Soiref.\nThe pre-sale for the concert begins today at 10 a.m., according to the band’s Web site, www.ofarevolution.com. Tickets will officially go on sale March 1.\nTickets are $28 for students and $30 for nonstudents.\nO.A.R. performed a concert Feb. 19, 2006, at the IU Auditorium and made an appearance at an April 2002 concert sponsored by the Kappa Sigma fraternity, according to a Dec. 9, 2005 Indiana Daily Student article.\nAdam Soiref, the Union Board’s concert director, said O.A.R.’s popularity and well-received performance after last year’s show at IU convinced the Union Board to ask the band back.\n“We bring concerts that the campus wants to see,” Soiref said. “O.A.R is asked to come to a lot of campuses, and we figured to bring them again would be beneficial to campus for the Little 5 atmosphere.”\nBringing O.A.R. back to campus would allow students who didn’t see the show last year to attend this year, he added.\nTyler Hudson, a second-year optometry graduate student, said he feels it is both bad and good that O.A.R is coming again.\n“It’s good because it is bringing back popularity,” he said. “But it would be nice to switch it up for people who went last year to the concert.”\nHudson said he would like to see former Little 500 performers the Red Hot Chili Peppers perform. \nJunior Katherine Ntiamoah said she’s “pretty upset” over the Union Board’s Little 500 concert choice.\n“We aren’t tapping into our music resources like we should be,” she said.\nNtiamoah said that since her freshman year, the music choices have been “pretty homogenous.” As a freshman, she saw The Roots perform, and last year Wilco performed for the Little 500 concert.\n“I’d like to see anything that’s different,” she said. “It’s the same concerts, (even) going beyond Little 5. It’s the same crowd appeal for the same people.”\nWhen asked who he would rather see at a Little 500 concert, second-year graduate student Jason Quinley said Wilco, even though the band performed at last year’s Little 500 festivities.\n“I know my friends are excited to go see them when they come,” Quinley said.\nDespite O.A.R.’s popularity, Ntiamoah said the Union Board could bring a more diverse set of concerts to IU. \nThe concert is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. April 20 at the IU Auditorium.