Concert promotes sexual assualt awareness at Pitt

National Awareness Months are a dime a dozen these days. So in an effort to make sure… National Awareness Months are a dime a dozen these days. So in an effort to make sure National Sexual Assault Awareness Month gets heard, Pitt’s Sexual Assault Services held this year’s “Rock Against Rape” concert outdoors, in easy listening distance from the busy section of Bigelow Boulevard between Forbes and Fifth.

The second annual “Rock Against Rape” concert was held this past Friday, from 6 to 9 p.m., on the William Pitt Union Lawn. The concert’s lineup featured a trio of local rock bands, each of them fronted by women. The bands featured were Rainstation Zero, Blind Side Rocks and Donora. The event was free and open to the public.

The concert series is sponsored by the Pitt Counseling Center’s Sexual Assault Services, and this concert’s timing is meant to kick off April as National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, as well as starting off Pitt’s Sexual Assault Awareness Week.

As the outdoor concert kicked off began with Rainstation Zero, it drew a solid crowd of roughly 50 people, which is an improvement over last year’s concert. Last year the concert was held in the duller atmosphere of one of the large lecture rooms in David Lawrence Hall, where it was much less visible to the general public.

Pamphlets and flyers on sexual assault awareness were made available at the concert, which maintained a constant though somewhat transient audience, as many passersby came and went.