Bigelow Bash features Queens of the Stone Age and a friendly monkey

The air was icy on Bigelow Boulevard. But that didn’t stop crowds of Pitt students from… The air was icy on Bigelow Boulevard. But that didn’t stop crowds of Pitt students from gathering at Pitt Program Council’s annual Bigelow Bash, filling the street shoulder-to-shoulder to listen to the music of the Queens of the Stone Age.

“Screw the cold! I’ll freeze for the chance to see a decent band once in a while,” Pitt freshman Rob Lantzy said.

He wasn’t alone in that sentiment. As the Grammy-nominated band took the stage, accompanied by a drumbeat that rattled the bones of everyone anywhere near the mammoth speakers, throngs of Pitt students cheered, applauded, and occasionally crowd-surfed.

“This is the biggest name band we’ve ever brought in,” former PPC recreations director Stephanie Hadgkiss said.

Despite the weather, which prompted one member of the band, Nick Oliveri, to wonder aloud what both the band and the audience were doing there, the band not only completed their set, but actually played a bit longer than they’d been scheduled to. Shortly after leaving the stage, as the crowd began to disperse, the band suddenly reappeared.

“We were just talking in the back,” announced singer and guitarist John Homme. “Since you guys just stuck around through all this cold, we figured we’d play some more for you.”

Needless to say, the cheering was even louder this time around.

In the hours before the Queens took the stage, students listened to the opening bands Concrete Elite and Lake Trout and took part in a number of other activities provided to students for free. Some climbed into a large steel scaffolding christened the Psycho Swing to do 360-degree flips through the air, while others harnessed themselves into the elastic, bouncy, and aptly named Trampoline Thing, with similar results.

Other students had caricatures drawn, had their names and birthdays analyzed to see what they said about their personalities, and made jewelry with a wide array of multicolored beads and decorations.

The unexpected star of the event, however, was one Mr. Adam Monk, who drew a great deal of attention by shrieking, climbing on students, and dancing for french fries.

Students waited in line for the chance to have their pictures taken with Monk, a cinnamon ring-tailed monkey from Brazil, as well as with a number of other animals brought to the Bash by Bill Hoffman from Animal Rentals Inc., including a chinchilla, a fennec fox, a hedgehog, some Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and an albino Burmese python.

Hoffman was unsurprised by the reception his animals, and Monk in particular, received.

“Mr. Monk likes top billing,” he said.

The Bigelow Bash was the result of a great deal of time and effort on PPC’s part. According to Justine Hand, PPC’s incoming Executive Board director, it took upwards of 35 hours just to assemble and disassemble the stage the bands played on.