Method Man, half of the Method Man-Redman duo, raps during their headlining performance. (Princeton Hynes | Student Life)

Sounds of laughter and chatter drifted through the Brookings Quad along with the mingled smell of pizza, beer and smoke. Hands waved in the air and bodies swayed against each other while the music flowed on.

There goes another Walk In Lay Down (W.I.L.D.).

With Method Man and Redman as the headliner preceded by K’Naan and Passion Pit, Team 31 Productions did not disappoint its audience in this fall’s W.I.L.D.

Senior David Schubert, co-chair of Team 31, knows there is always one reliable measure he can count on to gauge student satisfaction and event success.

“We were out of pizza, so the turnout had to be good,” Schubert said.

Many students crowded around the stage to position themselves closer to the music and excitement of the concert.

Indie-electronic musicians Passion Pit, an opening act, take the stage at W.I.L.D. (Joshua Goldman | Student Life)

“I liked Passion Pit the most,” junior Ian Chui said. “I really like Passion Pit.”

Sophomore Michael Offerman echoed Chui’s appreciation for the opening alternative band.

“I think Passion Pit was the most well known and probably should have been the headliner,” he said. “Method Man and Redman—not many people knew their lyrics, but they were a good combo.”

Freshman Michaela Sass commented on the liveliness of the acts and the concert atmosphere.

“[The performers] were very energetic and engaging,” Sass said. “It was crowded and pretty intense and confusing—but fun. It was a lot of fun.”

W.I.L.D. with a political twist

Though most of the concert carried on as it would in the past, this fall’s W.I.L.D. started on a very different note.

Minutes before K’naan’s performance, a new kind of presence took the stage and demanded everyone’s attention.

Junior Alex Greenberg ran to the stage, grabbed the microphone and identified himself as a straight male and a member of Sigma Epsilon fraternity. For the next four minutes that followed, Greenberg introduced the Right Side of History—an organized effort supported by several University undergraduates to recharge the LGBT movement by garnering support from straight youths.

Greenberg spoke of his friend, senior David Dresner—one of the two founders of the Right Side of History. Dresner along with 2008 alum Brian Elliot, both of whom are openly gay, started the organization with the hope that it will one day become a national movement.

Dresner said he is glad Greenberg was the one to deliver the message.

“I think that having Alex deliver the message maintains the narrative that we’re using to garner support from straight people,” Dresner said. “He is close with me, and personally vocalized in the past his concern for my future. It was touching that [he] did that for me.”

A crowd of students cheer and dance as they listen to opening act K’Naan at W.I.L.D. in Brookings Quad on Saturday. (Princeton Hynes | Student Life)

Greenberg’s speech drew mostly positive cheers from the crowd. Many students clapped to acknowledge the group’s mission, while others remained more reserved while processing the message.

“Starting at Wash. U. in this quad at W.I.L.D. begins the trek to the Right Side of History,” Greenberg cried out to the audience. “It is not an event. It is not a student club. It is nothing of the sort. It is strictly a civil rights movement that all of you are very welcome to be a part of.”

Since the announcement at W.I.L.D. and an article focusing on The Right Side of History published in Student Life last Friday, Dresner said his inbox has been flooded with e-mails.

“There’s an unbelievable number of alumni and students who are interested. We’re building infrastructure as it grows,” he said. “We will continue to reach out at Wash. U. while reaching out to other universities in the country.”

Team 31 approved of the stage time that the Right Side of History had requested—a decision that Schubert deemed “just seemed right.”

“Honestly, it’s not a perfect venue, but it’s the only large-scale venue at the University to give a speech like that,” he said. “We did think about the appropriateness, but we knew it would be a good chance for them. We are all really supportive of the group and its mission.”

“We wanted to help them in whatever way we could,” Schubert added.

Team 31, however, is not making any promises to give other social issues stage time in future shows.

“We didn’t want to politicize W.I.L.D.,” Schubert said. “The Right Side of History was a group that had reached out to us. They had a great agenda, a pretty clear-cut message and an idea of how we could help them.”

For Dresner, there was no better place or time to deliver the message of activism.

“The noble energy complements the fun, cohesive message of W.I.L.D.,” he said. “At the end of the day, there aren’t that many times when all of Wash. U. gets together. We had the opportunity, and we seized the day.”

Your performance this weekend (or what we witnessed of it, through the unfortunate auditory version of beer goggles) was truly stellar, bringing “cool” to Wash. U. in a way it hasn’t known since that night in 1997 when a few freshmen created a drinking game based on utterances from their chemistry professor. Whether we witnessed your music from a vantage point of standing in an infinitely long pizza line, grinding in what became a literal passion pit or looking up at you in the midst of a crowd-surfing experience—the thrill of which is only matched by the time we got a 98 on our price theory exam—we couldn’t help but think one thing: Why can’t you be here all the time?

In all seriousness, we’re a pretty tightly wound community, and we think you really helped us loosen up. We were unsure as to whether or not we were chill enough to hang with you, but once you invited us to light our marijuana cigarettes on the Quad, we started to see what life would be like if you always hung out here. We didn’t know if you’d like our classes, but then you started to introduce questions of gender and sexuality, asking about female arousal and really getting at the thrust of contemporary debates.

There was just one more thing you could have done for us, and impressively, you pulled through in just one weekend. We’ve always liked the Kemper, but we feel like Wash. U. lacks something substantial in the realm of visual culture. You gave us that, in the form of a few well-done, emotionally driven pieces of chalkboard art.

Courtesy of Student Life staff

Even if you don’t want to come hang out again, we beg the administration to leave your chalk work here for posterity, acting as a visual catalyst to our highest of academic pursuits and reminding us of the impermeable nature of mass culture’s place in higher education. Moreover, we encourage our administrators to take strides to ensure that only gender theory and narcotics policy classes are taught in the classrooms that have been graced with your presence.

But then again, we suppose it’s not that peculiar that the two of you are so familiar with our needs as a community and as an institution. After all, you did get into Harvard, and most of us didn’t.

Peace,

The Editorial Board