When you’re in college, it is not unusual for your school to have a spirit week set aside during each spring semester. Every year,around the end of March and beginning of April, a huge slump of stress hits me like a pile of bricks as I realize how much I have left to do and how much little time I have to do it all. The stress of finals and the school year coming to an end is a stress that not only affects me, but thousands of other college students, and so they all celebrate their “spirit week” differently to try and pep back up and pull through the last month of the semester.
Every year since I can remember, University of South Florida (USF) has had a large-scale, free-to-the-public festival, called Bullstock, held on the Friday of spirit week. This is my second year as a USF student attending this event, and they almost always please me with their selection of the bands that they invite to play at the school.
Drummer of Bad Suns, Miles
This year’s lineup however, seemed to disappoint many: Echosmith was headlining, with other performances from Bishop Briggs, Bad Suns (My Favorite), and The Griswolds, as well as some other smaller, local performers. Whereas most years, the lineup is announced weeks in advance, something must have been off this year because they did not announce the lineup until the Thursday of the week before Bullstock.
I was pleasantly shocked by the announcement of Bad Suns, an all-time favorite of mine who rarely make it to the Tampa Bay area. Their set was amazing, even with the bad-quality of the microphones they were using. My best friend Sharon and I managed to push our way up to the front for the performance, and happily met them in the parking lot behind the stage after their performance.
lead singer of Bad Suns, Christo
As we turned to leave after meeting the guys in the van, I saw the singer of The Griswolds approaching the parking lot out of the corner of my eye, and stopped Sharon so that we could talk to him before we left.
Chris, the singer of the band, obliged us with many photos, jumping over the fence to get “better lighting” angles for Sharon’s photos, and then proceeded to stand there and ask us about the best places to party around USF. It was a funny conversation, and when he subtly hinted to us that we should join the party “as long as we were over eighteen,” we politely declined and told him to have fun.
Although the lineup was not my favorite this year, it still went down in my memories as a fun night, and I look forward to the event next year, and the improvements that USF will make to get it to an even better level!
Thanks for reading, and as always, remember to smile,
HCXOXO
Hayley Garron
original blog post found at: https://dabblinginwonderland.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/usf-week-bullstock…