April 10, 2024
COUCHELLA (the virtual concert festival)
Submitted by Spencer Fischer
Kyle Tamkin and Gianna Marie have been the driving forces in the iCLU radio club, and my most powerful allies since I started teaching at Cal Lu. On April 15th I received a group text from the two of them informing me that with Coachella postponed and the world on hold, they had the idea to bring a little of that feeling to the student body and interested public, with a live DJ set from myself on the iCLU Instagram page. I asked who all is on the festival, and as it turns out I would be the opening act AND the headliner, at this point it felt cute. They promoted it like any concert would, I got my “festival style DJ set” together, and started seeing the possibilities with lighting and intros and all of a sudden it didn’t feel small on my end, it started to feel like a real concert, and at this point, everyone has watched and enjoyed a concert online, heck, I watched last year’s Coachella online, so, it started to feel somewhat legit. Troubleshooting sound issues and eliminating “hum noises” wait… this IS a concert!! 8pm we went live on Saturday night, (only the DREAM time slot at ANY festival) and holy smokes, our students and the interested public actually showed up!! In fact our audience kept building throughout the hour set giving us our highest numbers at the end, unheard of with the live dj sets we are seeing everywhere on social media. This has lit the fire of another upcoming virtual concert festival which MAY have occurred by the time this article hits. Here is why we made the news… and this is important… There are 7 Billion people all having a tough time right now. So it is actually newsworthy to see people refusing to collapse into their own misfortune, actually think of others, and somehow during this crazy unheard of social condition, find a way to connect, and lift spirits. I will admit, I had no desire to “panhandle DJ online” like the bulk of the field seemed to be doing, so when I was approached by Kyle and Gianna I knew this was my reason to engage and create. KEYT Newschannel 3 reporter Alys Martinez is a regular speaker in my class and she JUST happened to be the right amount of “invested” in our school, and “impressed” by the actions of the students and traction of a great event. I really hope our Cal Lu family is looking for opportunities to safely be of service during these odd days, because that really is all I did here. I am what I am, and didn’t know how that would be able to make a difference during this time, but Kyle and Gianna had a great idea, and it turned into something we can all be proud of. Was it a great DJ set, sure… but it’s a better story. Keep an eye/ear out for what’s next… iCLU radio, your campus station!