Guster rocks CMU at celebration

With a massive donation secured and a day of partying behind them, CMU students were headed… With a massive donation secured and a day of partying behind them, CMU students were headed toward disaster, according to Guster frontman Ryan Miller. “This seems like the perfect setup for a terrible college movie,” Miller remarked. “Or maybe I’ve been watching too many Will Farrell movies.” The crowd screamed its agreement.

Guster, an alternative rock band from Boston concluded a day of festivities at CMU celebrating a $265 million donation from William S. Dietrich II. The band played a 90-minute set, concluding with a fireworks display behind it.

Leaping into “Barrel of a Gun”, Guster seemed to be counting down to the climatic finish of the night. A chorus of  “4, 3, 2, 1” was simple enough to get the crowd involved from the start and foreshadowed the energetic performance to follow.

“Welcome to college!” Miller shouted to the audience after their opening number. In goofy banter that would continue throughout the show, Miller recalled the group’s beginning as classmates at Tufts University and how now “everything was coming full circle.”

While Miller eagerly cracked jokes about the day of revelry following the donation, his performance was sincere. He belted out high notes and shouted choruses with an enthusiasm rivalling his most excited fans.

During a solo performance of “Come Downstairs and Say Hello” an hour into the show, Miller dominated the stage with no more than a ukulele and a looper pedal. Gradually joined by bassist Luke Reynolds and then the rest of the band, they then transitioned seamlessly into “Do You Love Me.”

Miller’s jokes and upbeat, poppy songs weren’t the only thing keeping the crowd’s eyes on Guster.

There were plenty of strange instruments for a rock band. From the modified drum set that Brian Rosenworcel played entirely with his hands, to steel drums and a keytar, nothing seemed off limits.

A particularly bizarre set piece was a helmet Miller donned midway through “Broken Heart,” reminiscent of a Deevo hat, but outfitted with disco mirrors and a vocoder. Miller’s blind meandering around stage with his ridiculous helmet somehow seemed appropriate on this day of excess.

Guster’s songs were upbeat and danceable, mostly centered around Miller’s slightly cryptic lyrics rather than powerful solos. There were several brief guitar solos, often featuring guitarist Adam Gardner playing through washed out effects pedals.

When Gardner whipped out his trumpet in “What You Call Love,” the crowd erupted in a cheer so powerful it nearly drowned out the brief solo.

To the crowd of several hundred that gradually accumulated during the set, the show may have been little more than the climax of a day of free gifts and celebration following the donation.

Miller joked early in the show “do you guys even know who we are?”

Even if many CMU students hadn’t heard of the band, there were certainly some ardent fans in the front of the crowd. Several screamed along with the lyrics of the songs. Others threw ping pong balls onstage during “The Airport Song,” a fan tradition which mimics the table tennis game heard at the end of the recording.

Easily the most danceable song of the night, “Airport Song” filled out the end of the performance with some jamming and plenty of fast-paced solos by the members. As 9:30 approached, Miller coordinated the dramatic ending.

As the band finished up their encore, Miller cued the fireworks, which immediately erupted in a shimmer of golden sparks. Turning themselves to face the explosions, the band members jammed their way through several feel-good classics like “Stand by Me” and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

Anticipating the end of the fireworks, the band held out a long ending note, letting the pyrotechnics finish off the night.

As explosive shells pummeled the night sky behind him, Miller left the audience with a parting message. “Live with your heart. Live with your brain. Live with your balls. Take all those $265 million and make them your own.”