Wyclef, Jurassic 5 To Play in May

Hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean and the group Jurassic 5 will be coming to Harvard for a May 6 show, Undergraduate Council President Sujean S. Lee ’03 announced yesterday.

Though the contracts have yet to be signed, Lee said both acts have verbally agreed to perform next week.

The show will take place at the Bright Hockey Center, which seats roughly 3,000, and ticket prices will be $32.50 for people with Harvard ID’s and $37.50 for non-Harvard affiliates.

“Jurassic 5 is really popular at Harvard and Wyclef is such a big artist we thought that the two would make a really great, show,” said Lee.

The announcement comes one week after the Harvard Concert Commission (HCC) said that the group Outkast would not be coming to Harvard because HCC’s bid of $55,000 was far below the group’s normal fee.

The concert will be the first HCC show in the Bright Hockey Center, a venue the commission has worked for months with the College’s administration to secure.

Lee said that Bright’s large seating capacity relative to Sander Theater makes booking popular and expensive bands possible while keeping ticket prices reasonable for students.

Lee said that despite the $55,000 the HCC will pay to the performers and the tens of thousands it will spend to produce the show, the commission will likely break even or make a small profit.

Growing Pains

Next week’s event will be a major victory for the HCC, which has faced numerous obstacles since it held its first concert last winter—a successful Sanders Theater show featuring The Roots and Black Eyed Peas.

The first troubles occurred last spring, as the HCC tried to secure the band Dispatch for a spring concert.

A high-ranking Undergraduate Council member who spoke under the condition of anonymity said Lee may have violated council by-laws by placing a bid on the band without permission from the council.

“She sent off what she thought was just a non-bindng bid,” the council member said. “She thought she was just finding out if Dispatch would be available for a certain price, but she was legally bound to pay that price and have the concert that date.”

After Dispatch accepted the $12,500 bid, the plan was shown to college administrators who, according to the council member, rejected the spring date of the proposed concert.

“We were bound by the contract for a date in the spring at that price, and we couldn’t do the concert for the spring,” the council member said.

Fortunately for Lee, Dispatch was willing to change the concert date to Oct. 22, although it was under no legal obligation to do so.

Former Council President Paul A. Gusmorino ’02 confirmed that the bid was placed without the proper approval of the council.

"The Concert Commission placed a bid before getting the council’s approval—they are supposed to get the council’s approval,” Gusmorino said. “Those are rules which had just been passed, so there was some question over whether those rules went into effect right away or the next fall.”

Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 said he was aware of the incident but declined to comment on it.

Lee described the series of events as a “non-issue” and said that she was never worried that Dispatch would refuse to re-negotiate the concert date.

Lee said she thinks that “artists want to perform at Harvard and feel like it’s an honor to be invited here.”

Catching Up

The HCC met another hurdle last fall when College administrators were unreceptive to the idea of holding a concert in Harvard Stadium.

Administrators expressed concern that the concert would bring with it major crowd control problems.

“I don’t anticipate an overwhelming vote of support from our Allston neighbors for the idea of 60K-plus people arriving at the stadium in the spring,” Harvard Director of Community Relations Kevin A. McCluskey ’76 wrote in an e-mail to one HCC member last fall.

Since the proposal’s rejection and the Oct. 22 Dispatch concert, little was heard from the HCC. A meeting of the full commission last Monday was the 50-member group’s first of this year.

“This semester has been defined by discussion with the administration,” Lee said. “The bulk of the work has been carried out by the executive board.”

But some members of the commission who are not on its executive board have expressed frustration at being excluded from commission activities.

“There have been e-mails on the list asking if we were meeting, and members were wondering what was going on,” one member said. “Members were feeling in the dark.”

But Lee said she is optimistic that the commission will come together to prepare for next week’s concert.

“We’re in contact with the box office, and getting the hospitality ready,” Lee said. “We even have a preliminary progaram and posters ready, so as soon as the contract is finalized, we’re ready to bombard Harvard with publicity and make sure the word gets out.”

Earlier this year, the HCC guaranteed that it would organize at least two, potentially three or four concerts this school year.

Lee said she considers the Verve Pipe’s performance at last weekend’s Springfest to count toward HCC’s concert quota, bringing the year’s total to three.

“Although clearly it’s not the same as a regular HCC concert because it was free, and because we were working so closely with the president’s office. But I suppose we were still technically involved,” Lee said. “The concert commission has met its goals.”

—Staff writer Joseph P. Flood can be reached at flood@fas.harvard.edu.