The Assessment: Putting on a gig
Planning a casual get-together with your mates is hard enough, imagine trying to throw together a whole-ass concert. Yet, that’s exactly what Drew Van Arts and Devon Alexander are in the process of doing. The Massey second-years have spent the last two months planning the ultimate hip hop show, titled “The Assessment”, going down on 14 May. Massive sat down with them to figure out what the fuck goes into a gig, and what punters can expect.
Devon and Drew are in a secon-year Music Entrepreneurship class, and part of their assignment is that they either have to release music or put on a show. Drew admits that he didn’t have any music lined up that could have been mixed and mastered on such short notice, so he got together with Devon and started talking about the possibilities of a hip hop line-up. “It just kinda all came together in a week or two, and we were like, fuck, we should do a gig, man, it’ll be cool.” See, I wish my friends had this much enthusiasm when I talk about butt-chugging.
The name of the show, The Assessment, is a direct nod to their class assignment. “It’s very creative, I know,” Devon deadpans. Headlining the act is hip hop artist Guans with BushJungle, and Will Pegg supporting. Both Guans and Pegg are Massey students, who Devon and Drew describe as “amazingly passionate” and “can put on one hell of a good show”.
The Assessment is being held on the Wellington campus of Massey in Block 1, R1. Devon’s held a previous gig here, Microfest, so he’s pretty chuffed about the space, but admits it wasn’t his first choice. “Massey, as great as it is, was definitely our plan Z with everything, so it wasn’t always the plan to do it here.” The boys say they emailed “just under 50 venues” collectively, with no luck. Devon says, “out of 50 of them, I got four responses, two of them were like no sorry, we’re full, and the other two said sure, we can meet up, and then one never got back to me. The one I did meet up with, off the bat were asking for two grand cover charges which, as a student with no budget, is not feasible whatsoever.” Devon says they even left out the fact that they were students in their emails, but that still didn’t help the search. “No one was interested. It was quite heart-breaking to be honest, but it is what it is,” Drew admits.
Drew and Devon believe part of the disinterest was because of the genre they were championing, hip hop. “Chatting to our lecturers and our other artists, hip hop doesn’t really have a massive scene down here.” They believe there’s certain “stigmas” around the genre, which lead to venues having a “skewed view” and thus being hesitant to give artists and management a shot.
In the lead-up to the gig, Drew and Devon are focused on getting the word out, both with posters and social media. Aside from that, the pair are “doing a lot of forms at the moment - hazard forms - which is awesome,” Drew says sarcastically. Tussock has the elusive liquor licensing rights over the campus (bastards), so the guys are currently trying to sort out hiring them. Massey gigs have some perks though, like the proximity and the on-campus security. Bonus points if you do pres during lectures. Take a shot every time your lecturer doesn’t give off good vibes.
So why should students attend The Assessment? Well for starters, it’s in that sweet spot, just before the last crunch of assignments, so “you might as well have some fun beforehand”. Ah yes, before everything goes to hell. According to Drew, it’s “gonna be a pretty wicked gig, because this isn’t the most common type of music you hear in venues in Wellington. It’s a time where you can come and hear all that stuff and it’ll be a bit different.”
Devon agrees and says, “We’re combining pop and hip hop, there’s a little something for everyone! We’ve got a whole array of lights and sound equipment and everything, we can put on an industry standard show for $6, for $10. That’s like going to see Post Malone and paying $200 but we’re doing it back here, by your backdoor, at Massey.”
Pre-sale tickets for The Assessment are available on Under the Radar for $6, while door sales of $10 will also be available. As Devon says, “It’s gonna be a hell of a good time.” Who can argue with that? Now all students have to do is show up.