Whose idea was it to start Front Porch Society?Neal: “It was my idea. It was something I thought of my Junior year. I was around Williamsburg and was just sort of fed up with there not being enough live music in the area. It was just this brain child I had to help out Williamsburg with its music scene.”
What exactly do you do in FPS?Neal: “We host bands throughout Williamsburg – on campus and off campus. Our goal is a philanthropic goal, so eventually we will be able to give back once we’ve raised enough money.”Jesse: “Well we’ve given back already, with various profit shares we’ve done in the past semester. We also had the Fall Ball, which served as our largest philanthropic event, in which the proceeds went to the Chesapeake Foundation.”Neal: “So we also work with student bands. We’ve hosted a couple of student bands at the Delis, like Paul’s, Green Leafe, and College. We helped out with the senior class gift for Block Party, one of their big parties in the fall.Jesse: “We collaborate with different student organizations as well.”Neal: “Yeah, we’re pretty much a booking agency for student groups. So we bring bands to these groups that want to have an event with live music. We just make it easier for them to do so.
Any upcoming events?Neal: In two weeks, we’ve got a third installment of “Groovin’ at Paul’s” on the Thursday before spring break. My band will be playing, 5 O’Clock & The Somewheres, and a band called Gold Connection.
Can you tell me more about the Fall Ball?Neal: It’s basically an on-campus music festival that we host each fall. We had some great bands last semester – People’s Blues of Richmond and Malt Liquor Sunday.
What would you do differently next time around?Jesse: We got maybe like fifty people out to the event. It was kind of lousy weather and we could have done more in the way of advertising on social media and outreach publicity.”Neal: “That was our first shot. Our first time applying for funding through the school and also working with people from outside the school community to set up the stage and get equipment. But the event itself was successful. Everything went by without a hitch pretty much, except the rain, which we had to scramble to accommodate.