‘I was just blown away’: DJ Diesel performs at Bigelow Bash

DJ Diesel, the star better known as Shaquille O’Neal, created an electrifying EDM performance at Pitt on Saturday night.

The basketball star turned DJ performed this Saturday at Bigelow Bash for an audience of Pitt students. Although O’Neal is better known for his basketball fame than musical history, the bash may have changed some minds. 

Bigelow Bash was hosted by Pitt Program Council on Schenley Drive between 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. and showcased performances from Riotmonkie, Oxis and DJ Diesel. Riotmonkie opened the show at 6:15 p.m. to a crowd of around 100 students, while Oxis followed at 7:15 p.m. with a larger gathering of fans.

Student indie-rock band Riotmonkie opened the concert with a mix of original music and covers, including “Somebody Told Me” by The Killers. Lucas Nowak, a senior computer engineering major and member of Riotmonkie, said the band wanted to play ”energetic” songs for their set. 

“This is definitely the biggest show I’ve done, basically in any proportion. So I’m very happy to have this opportunity, and that’s what I’m trying to tell myself, and get myself excited for that reason, but obviously there’s nerves with it too,” Nowak said. 

Riotmonkie member and senior electrical engineering major Caitlyn Vinger was grateful for the opportunity to perform for Pitt students and to be featured as an opener. The group auditioned through Pitt Factor, an event run by PPC to select a student band from Pitt for a spot to perform. 

“It was competing against a bunch of other really, really cool groups, and we had no idea what was gonna happen that night, but they announced it on the same night, and we ended up winning. And it was super unreal,” Vinger said.

Oxis, an indie-electronic artist booked by WPTS radio, followed Riotmonkie with an aquatic-themed set that included “ambient, experimental and pop-sounds.” 

“[After WPTS reached out] my initial thought was, ‘hell yes, I need to be there,’ and I’m honored to play here,” Oxis said. 

Diesel performed at 8:30 p.m., encouraged the crowd to jump and sing, and invited students onto the stage while he performed. His set included mixes from popular songs such as “All I Wanted” by Paramore, which the crowd danced to with complimentary glowsticks courtesy of PPC. Bigelow Bash also featured representatives from the Autonomous Body Shop, Celsius and Breakaway Ohio, alongside food vendors. 

Riley Keenan, senior communications major and special events director for Pitt Program Council, said the planning process begins “early” in the fall semester when the organization picks a date and begins contacting Live Nation for artist bookings. 

“They send me about 20 pages of different artists in various [price] ranges and various dates and various genres. I knew I wanted to do something EDM. I knew I wanted to do something different that we’ve done in the past, and Shaq really stood out to me,” Keenan said. 

According to Keenan, this year’s high-profile guest and time change to a Saturday evening show compared to a typical Sunday midday performance required additional security for the event to ensure it was as “safe as possible.” She also stressed the importance of collaboration between PPC committees, as they have different responsibilities throughout the day.

“Past security, it’s really just reaching out to all these different departments and making sure everybody’s on board. It’s a really big lift. It’s not just like a one-person team. It couldn’t be done without all the committee here,” Keenan said. 

Instead of Fall Fest last semester, PPC hosted “Pitt-tober Fest,” a carnival-style event featuring vendors and entertainment. Junior music composition major and incoming special events director Will Stephens said hosting Pitt-tober in lieu of a concert allowed PPC to refocus on their mission.

“One thing that we try to do is kind of question what the events that we put on every year are doing for Pitt students, and kind of question if they’re hitting what they have in the past,” Stephens said. “I think we kind of had a moment at the end of Pitt-tober festival, we just wanted to rethink, why come to these concerts?”

The event was sold out, and some students, like first-year pre-occupational therapy major Alexa Dowden, planned on staying the entire time. She arrived at 5:30 p.m. with varied expectations, as Dowden was only mildly familiar with O’Neal and had not listened to his music.

“I’m gonna be real. My family’s a huge basketball family. I’m not a huge basketball person. So when they told me that Shaquille O’Neal was coming, they were like, ‘You gotta go,’” Dowden said. 

Channdavel Kong, a junior computer science major, arrived at 6 p.m. and enjoyed both of the opening acts as well as the vendors at the event. Kong has seen O’Neal perform at festivals before and noticed the shift in music style compared to former guests at Bigelow Bash. 

“I think the thing I like about this year was that it kind of brought a different culture, like rave culture or DJ culture — I like that a lot. Previous years, it was NLE Choppa or some other solo artists, but this one’s a whole new culture,” Kong said.

Matthew Charles, a first-year nutrition sciences major, called the event “absolutely amazing” and said he was “blown away” by O’Neal’s performance. 

“It was absolutely amazing. The vibe, I was just blown away,” Charles said.