hutch courtyard. friday. november 22, 2024. 12pm.

in response to michael jackson's "thriller" video, many mid-eighties rock bands tried prematurely to enter the world of high budget artistic video statements, only to land squarely on their neon-clad asses. the stage at the noontime concert series reminded me of one such attempt at greatness: the police's video for synchronicity part ii. the song is based on carl jung's philosophy that seemingly unrelated events are in fact connected, but the video ended up looking like the band in costumes leftover from an old run of les miserables dancing around on a garbage heap of scaffolding and old pizza boxes. well, we played on some scaffolding like that while about a hundred university employees, still on the clock no doubt, ate free hamburgers (and veggie burgers!). over two sets we plowed through every song in the repertoire, including some that really shouldn't have been.