Rewind to 2009. I was standing on my tiptoes, trying to peer over the crowd, when suddenly darkness flooded the room, and I swear my heart stopped beating. The crowd screamed as the first few chords of a familiar song started blaring through the speakers. Out on stage ran All Time Low and for first time the four heroes I had idolized through a computer screen for so long were only 50 feet away from me.
The very first time I saw my all time favorite band, All Time Low, I was only 14 years old. They would be the band that got me through all the fights, break-ups and drama that high school threw my way. They quickly became the four guys that understood me best, without ever speaking a single word to me. I invested in more concert tickets, fan club memberships and tee shirts than any sane teenage girl should have, but I would do anything and everything that I could to support them. Merely seeing them at one point was a dream come true to me. Getting to work one on one with my favorite band in the world was something that 2009 Alexa never saw coming!
In order to fully understand the level of awesome that Marist Mania was for me, we have to rewind to before I even went to Marist. The very first time I visited Marist I absolutely fell in love with the school. From that day on, I tried to learn anything and everything I could about the place that I knew I would soon be calling home. I stumbled across the Marist Student Programming Council website and saw the position of the Coffeehouse Chair. As an aspiring music business wizard, the idea of being able to book bands and run shows on campus was a dream. I set a goal for myself that I would one day obtain that position and eventually bring All Time Low to campus. By some miracle, the Coffeehouse Chair was leaving to go abroad in the spring of 2013 and they needed someone to start shadowing her position so they could take her place when she left. After putting my blood, sweat and tears into the application, I earned the future Coffeehouse Chair position my first semester of college. Fast forward to present day and I am now a junior and the President of SPC. Within the last two years, I cannot even recall the amount of people that would come up to me asking if we could bring All Time Low on campus. Surveys came back time and time again with proof that the student body wanted to see them. After careful consideration to put in an offer, they accepted and we were well on our way to the show.
Me and my executive board were heavily integrated into every aspect of the concert planning process. After months of countless tweets and status updates, poster making and flyer hanging, ticket selling and hospitality shopping, the day finally arrived. At around 1:30 p.m. the day of the show, All Time Low walked into the McCann Center. Like…the actual gym at Marist College. OUR GYM! I could hardly wrap my mind around it! For the next 9 hours I did everything from listen to them soundcheck to make a guacamole run for them. Seriously, I have never seen a band take guacamole more seriously than All Time Low. An hour before the show, SPC had a personal meet and greet with the band, where I got to personally tell them how much this show in particular meant to me. They were so thrilled to hear about how excited Marist was to have them. Their giant smiles will be permanently etched into my memory! Five minutes before the show, I had to make a few fire safety announcements to the crowd. The moment I stepped on the stage in front of the 600+ people that were there, the energy of the crowd hit me like a tidal wave. I could not believe that so many people were (almost) as excited to see All Time Low as I was. When All Time Low finally took the stage, the crowd went absolutely wild. The band put on a flawless show, inviting students to perform with them on stage and closing their set with their most popular song, Dear Maria Count Me In. Throughout the show I felt the same overwhelming excitement that 2009 Alexa had felt the very first time I saw them. At both of those shows, as equally as big of a dream was coming true.
Running the show reminded me why I want to work in the music industry in the first place. Music is a universal language. It has the power to break, build and mold a person into who they want to be. Music has been one of the only constant things in my life, but my passion for music and all of the inspiring experiences I have had because of it have molded me into a person that I am proud to be. I cannot thank All Time Low enough for all of the joy they have brought me the last seven years. More importantly, I cannot thank the Marist student body enough for showing SPC so much love and support during this whole process. This experience is something that I will cherish forever, and I hope that everyone else who participated will value their experience just as much as I value mine!
Photo Credit: Alexa Dalbis