All-American Rejects put a little ‘Swing, Swing’ into UW-Green Bay finals week with freewheeling pop-up concert | Green Bay Press Gazette
If this is what final exams week looks like at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, just one question: When does the next semester start?
The All-American Rejects put an unexpected exclamation point on the academic year with a pop-up performance that happened less than 30 hours after it was announced. That was plenty of notice to draw hundreds to Phoenix Park for the pop-rock band’s 45-minute set, proving that nothing takes the stress out of finals like singing along to “Swing, Swing” with frontman Tyson Ritter as he wades into the crowd.
The May 14 concert filled the sprawling green space with summertime vibes, as students and members of the public enjoyed the music from blankets, lawn chairs and — the preferred spot — squeezed up by the band, which played, not from a stage, but just large tiles laid over the grass. It quickly became an in-the-round setting as fans swarmed on all sides trying to get a look.
A volleyball game under the lights of the courts nearby never stopped when the concert started, with The All-American Rejects providing a soundtrack that included such hits as “Dirty Little Secret” and “Move Along.” Chalk art leading from the parking lots of the nearby Kress Events Center advertised the show, which was hosted by UWGB’s student station Radio GBX and featuring local artists DJ Saintsonne, Ditch the Hubcap and The Coves as opening acts.
A shiny black tour bus with a trailer parked nearby was the only real hint that a band whose first two albums went double platinum was on campus. The guys arrived for their set by rolling up unceremoniously in a pair of golf carts.
It was the first of seven pop-up concerts the band has planned for May to feed off the momentum of its new single, “Sandbox,” which it played midway through its set.
Ritter told the crowd about a video the band posted earlier in the day on its social media that showed him crashing a UWGB classroom during finals to spread the word about the concert before getting chased out by the professor.
“I walked in on a professor’s class today and I told all the students that were taking their finals, I told them about the show tonight and they were (expletive) in the zone, dude. It was a physics exam and I felt like really (expletive) about it afterwards. The professor actually said … ‘Get! Get!’”
The band also spent time earlier in the day doing an interview with Radio GBX, which had asked for a $5 donation from concertgoers to support the station or a nonperishable food item for the Campus Cupboard. The bin for food donations was overflowing.
For The Coves, it was the biggest crowd they’ve ever played to, besting previous gigs at At the Tracks in Green Bay and the Fourth of July parade in Iron Mountain, Michigan. They were able to pull off the last-minute ask before leaving on their first tour May 16.
To be able to say they opened for The All-American Rejects is a thrill.
“I listened to them a lot in middle school, and playing their drum kit was just unreal,” said drummer Izzy DeGrand. “I remember trying to learn how to play their songs on the drums.”
Bryan Carr, a UWGB professor who is also faculty adviser and general manager of Radio GBX, couldn’t have been happier with the turnout.
“I’m just very impressed with how many people showed up, and everybody’s been having a good time and behaving and polite, and that’s all we really hoped for,” he said.
“Our kind of guiding philosophy (at Radio GBX) is just to try to make the world as cool as we can make it, and so this is absolutely the sort of thing we’re trying to do, just trying to make things a little more exciting, a little more fun.”
The setlist
- “Dirty Little Secret”
- “Someday’s Gone”
- “Swing, Swing”
- “Sandbox”
- “Easy Come, Easy Go”
- “I Wanna”
- “It Ends Tonight”
- “Move Along”
- “Flagpole Sitta”
- “Gives You Hell”
Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert.
