Concerts at Georgetown: Then and now

Last Saturday night, a few hundred students gathered in McDonough Gymnasium for the Georgetown Programming Board’s Spring Kick-Off concert, which featured “Let It Rock” singer Kevin Rudolf alongside Los Angeles rapper Shwayze and electro-poppers Dev and the Cataracts.

Though the crowd was relatively small from the beginning, so many students left early that by the end of the concert, fewer than 20 people remained, according to concertgoer Caroline Ackerman (SFS ’14).

This year’s concert selection generated a tepid reaction from the moment the lineup was announced. Nearly 30 percent of students responding to a poll on Vox Populi, the Voice’s blog, said they had never heard of headliner Kevin Rudolf.

The lackluster response to this year’s lineup wasn’t a far cry from student reactions to most concerts at Georgetown in recent years. Although the Senior Class Council and GPB co-sponsored an appearance this fall by Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco, most spring concerts have featured outdated or lesser known artists. Last year’s kick-off concert featured ‘90s alt-rockers Third Eye Blind, and rapper Coolio came in 2008, fully 13 years after the release of his biggest hit, “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

But Georgetown was once a premier venue for bands wishing to make their mark in D.C. From 1969 to 1975, McDonough and Gaston Hall played host to acts such as The Grateful Dead, Arlo Guthrie, the Beach Boys, and Chuck Berry. The Who played Tommy almost in its entirety during a two-hour homecoming gig in 1969, and Bruce Springsteen came twice: first as a rising star in 1974, and then for a three-night engagement a year later, on the heels of releasing Born to Run.

“I think the acts really liked to play at venues that were full of university students,” Jura Koncius (SFS ’75) said. “I do think for them it was definitely part of who they were and part of the whole revolution that was going on. The music was really part of that.”

By the 1980s, however, Georgetown’s live music scene had peaked. Although the school still attracted performers such as Cheap Trick, the Talking Heads, and the B-52s, the center of gravity for D.C. concerts had begun to shift away from campus to bigger venues elsewhere in the District.

By the end of that decade, Georgetown’s reputation as a premier location for big-name stars had finally faded. An Oct. 15, 1987 concert retrospective in the Voice bemoaned the state of on-campus live music: “Once upon a time Georgetown University attracted the biggest names in the business. Today, Georgetown is lucky to have a concert on campus. Any concert.”

Part of the decline of live music at Georgetown can be explained by a proliferation of off-campus concert destinations and changes to the District’s drinking laws.

But many of the changes that hurt the University’s concert scene came from inside the front gates, as student groups de-emphasized live concert programming and campus administrators no longer prioritized scheduling and subsidizing shows.

And given the limited on-campus performance space and GPB’s relatively low budget, the state of concerts at Georgetown seems unlikely to change any time soon.

The city’s collection of music venues has expanded steadily since the 1970s, but  Georgetown’s performance spaces have remained largely unchanged.

During the heyday of on-campus rock and roll, Georgetown’s Student Entertainment Commission was able to book major acts despite receiving limited financial support from the University. At the time, few major arenas had been built in D.C., and McDonough and other university stadiums served as the primary venues for artists hoping to make their mark in the District.

The 1987 Voice feature noted that “bands were not only attracted to come here, but came with enthusiasm.”

Koncius said most of the concerts she attended while in college were either at Georgetown or at another university.

“I remember going to other schools to listen to good bands at the same time,” she said. “I think it was common for universities to have big bands.”

Bands were more likely to play at on-campus gymnasiums partly because of a lack of high-capacity venues in the District at the time. Until 1973, McDonough was the largest indoor arena in the D.C. area, making it a popular destination for students as well as local music fans not affiliated with the school. Throughout the 1970s, only a small percentage of the large crowds for concerts at McDonough were students. A March 26, 1974 article in the Voice reported that a performance by Three Dog Night brought a crowd of 3,800 to McDonough, of which only 500 were undergraduates.

Georgetown’s status as a premier concert venue began to decline when larger commercial arenas like the 18,000-seat Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland were constructed, giving artists larger and more modern spaces to perform.

“Up until [1973, when the Capital Centre was completed] we used to be the biggest indoor arena in the D.C. area,” SEC commissioner Debbie Insley explained in the Nov. 8, 1974 issue of the Voice, “but when the Capital [Centre] started, it really hurt us.”

Other large venues eventually opened within the city itself, including the 20,000-seat MCI Center (now called the Verizon Center) in 1997. Other D.C. universities eventually began to build arenas that surpassed McDonough’s capacity as well, including George Washington University’s 5,000-seat Smith Arena and American University’s 6,000-seat Bender Arena.

As venues within the city grew, more large-scale acts began to bypass Georgetown for other locations.

“Many artists that the SEC contacts are not interested in performing in McDonough Gymnasium, so there is really no way to attract a ‘big name’ to our campus,” the Voice wrote on May 2, 1978. Gradually, the SEC languished as it grew increasingly unable to draw big acts and as non-Georgetown students chose to attend concerts elsewhere in the city.

Current GPB chair Kathleen McCullough (SFS ‘12) said that a lack of space is still tough to deal with, making concerts that are booked less profitable.

“Georgetown just doesn’t have enough space,” she said. “McDonough Gym is only allowed to hold 2,500 people. … We never break even—the money we take in is always less than the total.”

But limited capacity is only part of the story of live music’s decline on campus. Student programming boards have traditionally been hindered by a lack of financial and facilities support from the University.

From its founding to its eventual replacement by GPB, the SEC received very little financial support from Georgetown. A Nov. 8, 1974 Voice report noted that the commission was the only student group not receiving direct financial support from the University.

In lieu of University support, the organization primarily raised funds through a concert subscription service for students, along with significant ticket sales to non-Georgetown students.

However, as concert revenues decreased, SEC found itself unable to adjust its focus as major performers turned away from campus. Facing accusations of financial mismanagement, the SEC disbanded in 1984 and was replaced by GPB.

“I would have been furious if my dollars had been spent the way they had been, because the old SEC spent way too much time working for the ‘big concert,’” Director of Student Activities Walter Cramer said in the Sept. 11, 1984 issue of the Voice.

The new GPB was to take over concert planning and provide smaller-scale programming such as movies and open mic nights. But despite its successes in organizing smaller programs, the group had to deal with the same issues that the SEC faced in its later years—a lack of funding and available concert space.

As Georgetown’s athletic programs expanded during the 1970s, reserving space in McDonough for hosting large events proved difficult. In 1987, GPB was forced to cancel a James Taylor concert it had booked because the athletic department refused to reschedule a volleyball tournament slated for the same day. (https://drvallecillos.com/)

McCullough said concert selection today is still limited by athletic schedules.

“The athletic department gives us a day and we can then [select an artist]” she said.

GPB has also historically had low levels of funding compared to peer universities, both locally and nationally. In 1989, GPB’s university budget totaled only $12,000, with $6,000 going to pay off past debts, according to former GPB Chair Alex Gershanik (COL ’90).

Until the end of the 1980s, many campus organizations, including GPB, were able to raise substantial money via the sale of alcohol, since nearly the entirety of students were of drinking age at 18. However, when the D.C. drinking age was raised to 21 in the late ‘80s, campus clubs were effectively cut off from a significant source of revenue.

“A lot of clubs funded themselves through alcohol sales,” Gershanik said. “When I graduated, I don’t think there was one club that could fund themselves through alcohol.”

Georgetown’s small programming budget also put it at a disadvantage compared to other universities when soliciting performers. Gershanik said that GPB’s budget paled in comparison to that of George Washington’s programming board, which received more than $120,000 from the university to fund events.

Unlike Georgetown, most universities funded programming with a mandatory activities fee paid by students each semester as a part of their tuition, he said.

“Program boards were university-subsidized organizations that new their budgets at the beginning of the year,” he said. “My pitch was always, if you want people to stay on campus and you want to have a social community, you want to fund programs that will keep people on campus.”

By 1990, University allocations per student for programming at Georgetown were only a third of George Washington’s, and a fourth of Catholic University’s—even after programs funding was more than doubled the year before.

Although the implementation of a student activities fee in 2001 has helped boost GPB’s budget, the University must still compete for acts with institutions that have larger endowments and activities fees, allowing them to allocate significantly more money to program funding. Yale, Columbia, and Penn routinely spend well over $100,000 to run spring concerts, while GPB’s entire allocation for the upcoming academic year totals only $83,000, according to GUSA FinApp figures.

Despite a recent hike in the activities fee as part of SAFE reform, McCullough is doubtful that GPB will be able to afford substantially bigger acts without hikes in ticket prices.

“We would have to get so much more money to bring in a much larger artist,” she said.

Georgetown’s student-run internet radio station, WGTB, has also offered campus programming through a series of concerts in Bulldog Alley. After partnering with GPB in the spring of 2008 to bring Pittsburgh mash-up artist Girl Talk to campus, the station has begun booking concerts in Bulldog Alley itself. (Disclosure: the writer is a DJ for WGTB).

The group often targets smaller artists that might not be on GPB’s radar, WGTB General Manager Caroline Klibanoff (COL ’12) said. The station has also staged concerts for Titus Andronicus, Free Energy, the Hood Internet, and Best Coast.

“We like to support independent artists,” she said. “Honestly, we [and GPB] just have two different motives and interests.”

Like GPB, WGTB suffers from space and monetary constraints, generally operating with a programming budget of $30,000 and limited use of the 250-person Bulldog Alley.

“I would hope that as time goes by that we would get more funding and less red tape so that groups such as WGTB could bring the acts that we want to bring,” she said.

Still, the events that it organizes have been well received. Both the Hood Internet and Best Coast performances were sold out.

The era of great concerts on campus may be over. The space problems the University faces likely make it impossible to attract pop stars who are used to performing for crowds in the tens of thousands. Then again, innovative GPB and SEC leaders over the past decades have found ways to bring notable acts to campus with relatively slim resources.

The SEC, for example, experimented with inter-campus collaboration when it co-sponsored a performance by the Pretenders with American  University in 1981.

In the late ‘80s, Gershanik said GPB was able to lower costs by negotiating lower rates with acts already performing near campus.

“When some other school within 50 or 60 miles had somebody, we called them to see if they had the night off before or after,” he said.

Current members of GPB might be able to find similarly innovative ways to bring more popular acts to campus. But until they do, events like last week’s Kevin Rudolf show, which drove away most of its attendees before it ended, could remain the norm.