Originally Written November 2, 2021
WUVT’s Radiothon concert rocks the house
Thursday, Oct. 28, a collection of local bands performed at The Milk Parlor in support of WUVT’s Radiothon programming week.
“Now that its over, I’m super happy with it,” said Grace Dalton, event coordinator. “All the bands did incredible; no-one broke anything and there were no fights and so it went off as well as I hoped it could.”
The bands that played were Orange Culture, The Noodle, Cherry Moon, Friend of the Three and Bone Machine. All the bands play rock ‘n’ roll music, but the subgenres range from indie rock to hardcore punk. The groups all originate from the New River Valley area.
The concert took place at The Milk Parlor in Blacksburg, a bar and music venue located just outside Virginia Tech’s campus. The concert was scheduled from 9 p.m. to midnight, but the last performance ended at 12:45 a.m.
The staff heads at WUVT-FM organized the concert to promote the station’s weeklong programming of live DJs, called Radiothon. Radiothon is a fundraising event for the station to help pay for equipment and keep the organization running. The ticket sales were not tied to the fundraiser or the fundraiser’s total.
“It helps raise awareness for WUVT,” said Justin Louie, AM program director at WUVT. “It also helps local bands promote music down in Blacksburg.”
The band that the crowd reacted most positively to was Friend of the Three. The group is comprised of Reece Preisser on vocals, Nicholas Cardaci on electric guitar, Colin Cardaci on drums and Tyler Bevington on bass. Prior to the performance, the group released a self-titled album in January of last year and they released a song titled “Yoü” six days before the concert.
The crowd was gathered near the front of the stage as the band played songs from their catalogue. Their playlist included their songs “Glue Shoe,” “Yoü,” “Always” and “Fell in Love with an Addict” among others.
At one point during the set, an anonymous woman in the crowd yelled that it was her birthday, and the band and audience sang Happy Birthday to her.
After performing their song “So Close, so Cold” as a closer, the crowd started to shout for an encore. After a minute of the band deliberating on stage, they did an impromptu performance of Green Day’s “When I Come Around” that had the crowd singing along.
“Make some noise for the other bands that played,” said Reece Pressier, vocalist for Friend of the Three. “Blacksburg has a pretty sick music scene believe it or not.”
Bone Machine is comprised of Reese Austin on drums, Joey Barth on bass and Tashi Gyatso on electric guitar. Their playlist includes songs from their debut self-titled EP released in July, but also included unreleased songs like “Oh No” and “Angel.”
Bone Machine were the last to perform, but even though the crowd was smaller than it was at the concert’s start, people were headbanging and moshing the entire set.
Their performance was the loudest compared to previous acts, with Austin banging the drum kit as Barth and Gyatso kept a punky groove and sang the occasional lyrics.
“Move and dance, cause it’s fun and good for you,” said Tashi Gyatso, Bone Machine guitarist.
Cherry Moon consists of Nick Sybirtz on both guitar and vocals, Katie Marschalko on keyboard, Kelly Runyon on bass, Forde Upshur on lead electric guitar and Jackson Aldridge on drums. The group has no released music.
The group took to the stage in “The Wizard of Oz” based costumes and started with a song titled “Space Rocks”, which featured Marschalko’s synthesizer prominently and evoked cheers and head-nodding from the crowd.
Other songs they played include “Punk Song,” “Etheria” and “Rust from Dark.” Despite a mostly instrumental set, bassist Runyon sang one song, and the crowd began to cheer her name after the song was over. The band ended their set with a cover of “All Along the Watchtower” as performed by Jimi Hendrix.
The first band that played was Orange Culture, who featured Reid Jepson on drums, Landon Carter on bass, Charlie Lewis on electric guitar and Griffin Boucher on vocals. They have two released albums: “Occo” and “Retrograde Tapes.”
The sound system was not working properly during their set, which led to the music drowning out Boucher’s voice. However, he still performed the entire playlist with no hesitation, and the crowd were head-nodding and enjoying the performance as Boucher sang and danced on the stage.
“I think it’s very loud but it’s really good,” said Kayra Ersoy, a Virginia Tech student.
The Noodle consists of Forrest Houlgrave on vocals, Forde Upshur on electric guitar, Michael Zumbaugh on bass and Andrew Grove on drums. They released the “Cooks!” EP in 2020 and two singles, “Sunny Day” and “Loud Song,” this year.
Houlgrave held a strong stage presence as he sang and wailed his lyrics, and the crowd reacted positively to the entire performance.
