Fast Times at the University of Pittsburgh: The Academy Is… Rocks the Bigelow Bash
So, every year on the first Saturday in April, the University of Pittsburgh closes down Bigelow Blvd. between Forbes and Fifth Avenue. This serves two purposes:
- Massively messing up traffic patterns through Oakland
- Allowing Pitt to throw a huge party complete with a free concert
In past years, Pitt has gotten acts like Hawthorne Heights, Bif Naked, Ben Folds and Jason Mraz. And this year, they didn’t disappoint because they got The Academy Is… to headline the show!
The boys opened the show with “Summer Hair = Forever Young” and then segued into songs like “Neighbors,” “The Phrase That Pays,” “Checkmarks” and “Everything We Had.” William even talked a little bit about Pitt’s super disappointing loss in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA tournament, say he had Pitt going to the Final Four. He used this as a means of introducing “His Girl Friday,” so bonus points there, Billiam.
There were only really two downsides to this show, and only one of them could really have been helped. The first downside was something I really should be used to at this point: Pittsburgh weather. Despite hitting almost 70 degrees during the week, Saturday’s high temperature pushed MAAAAYBE 52. Add to that the fact that it was really windy and it made for a pretty chilly day to be outside (granted, I say this now and odds are I’ll be PRAYING for 52 degree weather when Warped rolls around…). However, even the chilly weather didn’t stop The Butcher from taking his shirt off partway through the set (teasing the crowd by asking “Who wants the pants?”)
The other disappointment was the sound quality for the vocals. This was a problem that Secondhand Serenade had when they played their set earlier in the day, and it wasn’t really fixed by the time TAI… took the stage. I’m not sure what the problem was, but the volume of the vocals was really low and sometimes hard to hear even from the barrier.
But, hell, I got to see The Academy Is… for free and had one hell of a good time doing so. At which point? I’m not about to complain.
CLICK HERE for my other photos from the set!
