Eleanor Linafelt
A&E Editor
The Wooster Activities Crew (WAC) hosted their last small concert of the year on Wednesday, April 25 with an intimate and powerful performance by the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Lakin.
“I thought Lakin would be a good fit and appeal to the wider student body because we had not yet brought a woman neo-soul artist to campus this academic year,” said Linden Taylor ’19, director of small concerts for WAC.
Korri Palmer ’20 and Donté Claybrooks ’18 opened the cozy, seated show in Douglass Basement together with a few covers of songs that displayed their strong voices and impressive harmonizing abilities.
“I knew that they were in the Women in Art event that The Goliard hosted … and thought it would be good to reach out to more student musicians on campus,” Taylor said. The students engaged the audience and brought energy to the room that welcomed Lakin onstage.
Though armed with only an acoustic guitar and a pedal board, Lakin immediately filled the room with her presence. She made impressive use of her looping pedal, creating loops of rhythm and guitar riffs to play other parts over. Even on the songs without the looping pedal, Lakin integrated her deft skills on guitar with her impeccably strong voice to perform musically complex and tunefully catchy songs.
Lakin established a friendly and casual relationship with the audience, integrating stories about her songs throughout her set and displaying the wide breadth of her songwriting abilities. She performed about everything from her favorite TV show, “Lost,” to more political songs about the difficulty of being a queer woman in the United States right now.
One particularly interesting story was when she described her song with Spanish words as a way to connect to the half-Mexican part of her identity through her music.
“I loved the energy in the room. Lakin had a great stage presence and the audience was very engaged in her interactive performance,” Taylor said.
Lakin prefaced her final song by describing it as a reaction to the current lack of listening to conflicting ideas that she has observed in our political climate. In a touching way to address this, Lakin encouraged the audience to sing certain lines with her. With the entirety of the entranced audience supporting Lakin’s strong voice, this end to the show displayed the power that music can have to bring people together, regardless of background or ideas.
Though Lakin’s show was the last small concert of the school year, Taylor is already looking forward to next year’s music programming.
“I have learned how important it is to reach out, not just to artists, but to members of The College of Wooster community involved in other student organizations to get as many people engaged in the music scene on campus as possible,” she said. “I want to make sure that feedback carries over into the next academic year and that comments and concerns from the student body continue to be addressed in future event planning.”
It was clear from this show that Taylor and WAC have already begun to address this student feedback.
“I think that it is important to be intentional when deciding which artists to bring to campus,” Taylor said. “I thought that by asking Lakin to perform, a woman and person of color, I could begin to address this feedback.”