The Afterglow, The Spokes and many others come together to bring you this romantic treat.
The fifth annual Lights Low with the Afterglow performance is set for this Friday, Feb. 19. The all male a cappella group The Afterglow, will be joined this year by the all-female group The Spokes, UC Santa Cruz’s the Hightones and The California Golden Overtones from Berkeley. Beginning at 8 p.m. in Science Lecture Hall 123, The Afterglow’s show promises to be as sweet as ever.
Henry Le, a third-year computer science and English double major, and social media manager for The Afterglow, explained why their annual show is held around Valentine’s Day and centers around love.
“Each group organizes a show every year, and our theme speaks our all-male, romantic brand,” Le said. “We usually invite all girl-groups so we’re the only guys.”
The Afterglow and The Spokes have a special connection on campus. Anya Stewart, fourth-year political science major and co-president of The Spokes, has been with the singing group for about three years.
“[The Afterglow] try to center the show around Valentine’s Day so they can do their ‘boy thing’ and get all the girls excited in the audience,” Stewart said. “They’re all super fun guys.”
Whilst the boys play up to their romantic image, The Spokes like to have fun with the theme too.
“[We] wear as much pink as we can to that particular show because it falls around Valentine’s Day, so we like to have fun with it,” Stewart said.
Traditionally, The Hightones and The Afterglow always invite the other to perform at their shows. Kathryn Coulombe, activities director of The Hightones, sees the Afterglow as their brother group in the far-off land of Davis.
“It’s a show we look forward to performing in each year because we get to see groups from other universities,” Coulombe said.
With The Hightones recently placing first at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) quarterfinals, and The Spokes placing second, be prepared for an all-star line up.
“Our win at ICCAs was a shock for all of us. We went into it as uncharted territory and were just excited to be going to quarterfinals. We never expected to place at all, especially first place,” Coulombe said. “We all agreed to go into the competition with a positive, non-competitive attitude. We were doing it to see what we could accomplish together and really stressed having fun. So even until the last moments before heading on stage, we were having a great time and supporting each other.”
Away from the heady competition of the ICCAs, all the groups are looking forward to having a good time at Lights Low.
“We sell raffle tickets for a serenade at the show. If we pull your number, we’ll bring you up for a serenade on stage. Last year we had 50 tickets bought for this one girl, and all her friends were screaming her name,” Le said. “We’re opening with ‘Dead and Gone,’ and closing with our traditional song, ‘Killing Me Softly,’ and if there’s any alumni in the crowd, which there usually are, we’ll invite them up onstage to join us, which is amazing.”
The Hightones setlist includes a Michael Jackson medley, as well as a mashup of the Taylor Swift songs “Blank Space” and “Bad Blood,” while The Spokes will be debuting a brand new song.
Tickets are now available for $7 presale or $10 at the door, and can be purchased online or at the MU tables. Check out the event page on Facebook for more information, or visit The Afterglow’s Facebook page.
WRITTEN BY: Kate Snowdon – arts@theaggie.org
