Four days shy of the voter registration deadline, students will have a chance to register, brush up on the presidential candidates and rock out to an eclectic lineup of musicians.
Penn State's Asylum club is hosting a Rock the Vote concert tonight featuring Philadelphia pop-punk band Valencia and three local bands. The club organized a Battle of the Bands show last week in which the audience voted for the best three bands of the seven that played.
Battle victors I Am Alaska, Silence the Sanity and Acalasia are based in towns across the state: Doylestown, Erie and Altoona, respectively.
"Each band definitely earned its spot in the show," Andy Pool, Asylum president, said. "They all deserved the recognition and support they got from the audience."
Pool said Valencia's sound, closely resembling Hit the Lights and Taking Back Sunday, will contribute to the musical diversity of the evening.
He said I Am Alaska, an experimental, progressive band, has a few punk elements in the vein of At the Drive-In. Silence the Sanity is a metalcore band, and Acalasia's female lead singer makes the group sound like a "heavier, less poppy version of Paramore," he said.
Pool added Silence the Sanity worked the crowd really well at the Battle of the Bands. The band promoted the show extensively because many of its Penn State friends showed up, garnering it a pile of votes, he said.
Acalasia bassist Stephen Wells (senior-mechanical engineering) said it was cool his band was selected because when it played in Battle of Bands at the Movin' On festival in May, it wasn't as lucky.
"That was a bit of a downer," Wells said.
Acalasia and Valencia last played a show together in April at Shippensburg University and because of Acalasia's victory last week, it will have the chance to play with the Philadelphia natives for a third time.
Wells said Acalasia chose to record a few songs at a time and promote them at shows and on MySpace. The band's new song, "So Fitting," is one it plans to perform at the show.
The concert is not a typical on-campus performance. Thanks to the show's Rock the Vote sponsorship, there will be voter registration booths and student-run political organizations handing out information about the presidential candidates.
"It's not only going to be a fun show but an informative one as well," Pool said.
The students in the crowd won't be the only first-time voters at the show. Steve Soliwoda, frontman for Silence the Sanity and a student at Mercyhurst College, said none of his band members were eligible to vote in the last election, so the event should benefit them as well as his peers.
"People love music," Soliwoda said.
