Living Colour Says No to Council Bid

The fusion-rock group Living Colour rejected an Undergraduate Council bid for a campus performance this spring, making it unlikely that the council will sponsor a second-semester concert at all.

A conflict in dates led to the failure of the council bid for Living Colour, according to council concert coordinator Eugene S. Kim '92. And time constraints for the council make another bid highly unlikely.

"The chances of a spring concert are looking slim to none," said vice-chair David A. Aronberg '93. "We were kind of upset because they told us nothing beforehand. All of a sudden, they said, 'Well, sorry.'"

"Council members are kind of down," Kim said. "This is one of the times they can do something very visible for the student body. It's a great disappointment for the UC."

Three weeks ago, the council voted against a bid for The Kinks. A week later, the organization elected to bid for Living Colour. At the time, Kim was optimistic about the chances of grabbing a Harvard spot on the band's spring tour, and expected to hear from the band's promoter within the week.

"Once we put in a bid about two weeks ago, we were insistent on getting a response as soon as possible so we could start making plans for the concert," Kim said. "It looked positive because there was nothing wrong. The money was fine, we thought the time was fine."

But the ensuing week yielded no new news about the bid, which expired after a week. The council extended the bid "with the idea that there would be no problem getting Living Colour to come here," Kim said.

"As it turns out, we ended up waiting an extra week and wasting very valuable time," Kim added.

Kim said the band would not come to Harvard because of a conflict with the concert date. Living Colour will be touring in the early part of April, and the council's intended date of May 4 was too late for the group.

"The crusher of it all is that because we waited two weeks, it put doubt on whether we're going to have a concert," Kim said. He said that in order for a concert to be feasible, the entire council needs to vote on a bid for another group as soon as possible. But the council will not hold another general meeting until April 7, after spring break.

Kim said he has been contacted by promoters of other bands, but that none of the groups looks realistic for the council.

"All of the concert promoters are like little rats," Kim said. "They all try to get a piece of the action."

Kim said that Bob Dylan, for example, would require a "huge" $45,000 overhead cost.

"There's a debate in the finance committee over whether he's financially desirable," Kim said. "I don't think we have that kind of money."

"Maybe the lack of a concert this semester will be good for us because we'll have somewhat of a buffer for years to come," Kim said.

In the past, the council has lost money on most of its concerts. Last year's Ziggy Marley concert was a $10,000 loss, and the 1989 Suzanne Vega concert cost the council upwards of $20,000.