Inside a packed auditorium, hundreds of students waited for the opening act of the show, stomping in unison and singing the chorus of “We Will Rock You” by Queen.
The Rediger Chapel stage was lit up on March 2 for Taylor’s annual Nostalgia Night, hosted by the Student Activities Council (SAC). The event showcased students playing a wide variety of music from before the year the seniors were born.
The night was filled with energy-packed performances, from Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” to a charismatic version of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” that the crowd emphatically participated in. One band played a soulful rendition of “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” by James Taylor, highlighting the powerful vocal and saxophone skills of seniors Alivia Henn and Nathan Sevilla.
Sevilla has participated in Nostalgia Night for the last two years. While looking for a song that would be fun to perform with his friends, he landed on this piece with room for the saxophone and a prominent piano part.
“I think it's a different feel to a lot of the other nostalgia night songs,” he said. “It's more jazzy and has more of a soul kind of root to it.”
This year saw 40 auditions for the show before SAC narrowed it down to 14 acts, Amber Van Kalker, president of SAC, said. She compared those numbers to the 27–30 auditions that MyGen had. Freshman numbers could have been a contributing factor, with new faces auditioning, she added.
“I would say we've probably averaged 15 more bands this year compared to last year,” she said, “because we didn't have any breaks in our schedule at all, which hasn't happened in years.”
For some, Nostalgia Night struck a chord that continued a journey they had already been on. Sevilla appreciates that it was such a big event because it reminded him of the positive experience he had with music in high school, something he had missed going into college.
“Coming into Taylor and thinking about what's beyond, I don't know that there will be quite as many unique opportunities,” he said.
Sophomore SAC member Annie Troyer remembered coming to the fall MyGen show as a freshman and being shocked to see the number of students lined up before the show throughout the LaRita Boren Campus Center. To pass the time, they would be sitting at tables with chairs and playing group games.
Regardless of all the hype, she said that Nostalgia Night is not a moment to get attention; it’s purpose is to showcase the God-given talent of the students.
Junior Thane Syswerda and senior Seth Griswold were the masters of ceremony for the event, allowing for plenty of audience interaction throughout the show. Griswold said that Syswerda came up with a lot of ideas for their script to tie into the Olympic theme. They even played a Wii game in the middle of the show, which Syswerda unfortunately lost.
“During the show, it wasn't like we had to follow that exact script,” Griswold said. “We kind of knew we were going with it and how we could get to the end goal.”
This meant that there were a few improvised lines. Griswold mentioned that his reference to “Stu couples” was something he had thought of at the moment. What about the couple of balloons that popped rather suddenly at one point? That was out of their control, he said with a shrug.
During dress rehearsal on Friday night, SAC members like Troyer worked furiously to set everything up. She said they would start work at 6 p.m. and get done around 12 a.m., then come back the next morning and fix all the decorations that had fallen down.
But the preparations had started long before that night.
About six weeks before the show, SAC talked about what theme they wanted and decided on centering the night around the upcoming Olympic games, Van Kalker said. The members then split into three different teams to prepare to transform the downstairs, upstairs and chapel into a new landscape.
“It's a lot of painting and cardboard, which is super fun,” Troyer said. “It's super therapeutic for me.”
The prepping process of painting and cutting out paper took place a couple weeks before the show, with some members staying up until 1:30 a.m. on a night approaching the show, Troyer added.
The final song, “American Pie” by Don McLean, gave a nod to the seniors as students sang the words, reflecting on their experiences. This was the seventh show that Van Kalker worked on, and she said it had been exciting but bittersweet. With this in mind, she tried to pour as much into it as possible.
“I thought it was kind of special,” Griswold said, reflecting on the song. “Everyone's coming together, arms around one another, and swaying and just sticking together.”
