by Clarisse Profilet Mercury Life & Arts Editor

SUAAB is giving UTD students yet another reason to stay on campus after classes have ended for the day – the March 25 Big Concert, featuring Blue October and Bowling for Soup. ?Student Union Activities and Advisory Board (SUAAB) Advisor Stella Mulberry said Blue October was chosen from the results of a student poll in the fall semester.?”Sugar Ray was first, but he took a long time getting back to us,” Mulberry said. “The Ataris were on vacation in Europe…Blue October was third and the natural choice at that point. Needless to say, we are happy with it.”?The free event begins at 9 p.m. No tickets will be distributed. There will be a large standing area in front of the stage and some benches set up for the more laid back concertgoers.?Two UTD familiars from the Underground Poetry Circus, Smooth Choppy and Common Folk, will also be performing with the headlining bands.?SUAAB strives to combat student apathy through its scheduling of big-name performers, said Faisal Chaudhry, SUAAB executive chair and senior biology major.?”Since our job is to promote student life, we’re really trying our best to break the mold with these events,” Chaudhry said.?In response to noise complaints from residents living near the UTD campus, SUAAB opted to move the event indoors to the Activity Center.?”We certainly intended to have an outdoor location,” Mulberry said. “Last year’s Cowboy Mouth noise issues and meetings with administration left us with the conclusion that we needed to get away from everyone – campus neighbors, Waterview residents and classes.”?Nonetheless, SUABB is doing the best it can to make its location work, hiring acoustics experts to maximize the sound potential from the Activity Center, Mulberry said. ?”We’re getting padding and some other amenities… the sound won’t bounce off of the walls too badly by the time we’re done with that room,” Mulberry said. ?The production is expected to draw a fairly large audience, with express interest from SMU, TCU, and even UT Austin, Mulberry said.?Blue October’s most popular hit “Calling You,” is a love ballad that pervaded radio stations from alternative to pop beginning in early summer 2003.?According to MTV, Blue October is a band worthy of audience appreciation.?”Blue October has made it their life’s work to probe below the surface, to expose the disfigured emotions behind the everyday masks,” according to MTV in Bands A-Z. “As the Texas-based band’s new Brando/Universal album, “History For Sale,” makes clear, Blue October wields honesty like a bayonet, and they’re not afraid to draw blood.” ?Bowling For Soup has been a local favorite in Deep Ellum since the late 1990s and burst into the Billboard Top 40 with the Grammy-nominated single “Girls All the Bad Guys Want” and “Punk Rock 101,” which sold more than 200,000 copies of their “Drunk Enough to Dance” album.?”The boys from Wichita Falls employ all of the musical tricks that have made their peers famous, from Blink-182’s tales of teenage angst to Sum 41’s snide attitude and Good Charlotte’s hip-hop-inspired breakdowns,” according to Bands A-Z. ?The band periodically bears the brunt of criticism from some of its old fans about turning towards the pop-punk revolution that has swept today’s music, but Bowling For Soup came by its style in a far more noble fashion according to Rolling Stone magazine.?”Before forming the band, Jaret Von Erich was wasting his days in a mediocre death metal band,” according to Rolling Stone. “All that changed in 1994 when Erich decided to make what he calls “happy” music,” an elementary decision that allowed their style to transcend pop and punk rather than following the punk-rock amalgamation formula.”?