DeGraw May Headline Yardfest

The College’s third annual Yardfest will feature two headlining artists for the first time—one of whom may be pop-rock artist Gavin DeGraw.

According to College Events Board Chair John F. Pararas ’08-’09, negotiations are still in the works to determine this year’s Yardfest performers.

“I can tell you with 100 percent accuracy that we have not signed anyone for Yardfest yet,” Pararas said.

A representative from J/Arista records—DeGraw’s label—said that according to an internal calendar, “he is definitely scheduled to be [at Harvard]” on April 18, 2008, which is in the appropriate time frame for Yardfest. The representative declined to provide her full name.

Pararas added that organizers are pursuing two musical acts for this year’s events, to suit the variety of musical tastes represented on campus.

He declined to comment on the assertion that one of the acts being pursued is DeGraw.

His repertoire features “I Don’t Want to Be,” “Chariot,” and “Follow Through,” from an album released in 2003. DeGraw, who trained at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, is slated to release a new album this April.

According to Pararas, student surveys done last year directed artist-finding efforts.

But DeGraw’s popularity on campus seems limited.

“I would say that there are artists who I’d be more excited about,” John J. Costa ’09 said.

Many students simply did not know who DeGraw was—responding “Who?” when asked their opinion of him as a Yardfest performer.

“Why don’t we get somebody that everyone knows?” said Peter A. A. Singh ’10. “I’d rather have Tim McGraw.”

Others said they were excited by the prospect of DeGraw’s performance, singing the first few lines of “Chariot” or “I Don’t Want to Be”—the theme song for the CW show “One Tree Hill”—to friends who were unsure of DeGraw’s identity.

Last year, the College hosted Third Eye Blind, best known for ’90s hits such as “Semi-Charmed Life.” And in 2005, Ben Folds took to the steps of Memorial Church.

While Folds was popular with students, many voiced dissatisfaction with Third Eye Blind because the band’s most popular songs were released nearly a decade before they played in the Yard.

One student expressed a similar concern about DeGraw.

“He’s kind of two, three years past,” Hannah K. Ahn ’08 said.

The information was first leaked out on Lowell House’s open list by Carrie E. Andersen ’08, who was surfing pollstar.com, a “user-friendly way to find concerts in the area” while “procrastinating writing [her] thesis.”

“In mid-April, I saw that Gavin DeGraw would be in Cambridge,” Andersen said. “We always tend to get mediocre artists [for Yardfest], so I thought it would be for that.”

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu.