Solo in the SOCH

Maybe it was the social death sentence implicit in the blurbs that billed him as a “Freshman Phenom,” but only six people (counting me, the girl who was working at the Pent House café, and the person who promoted this Acoustic Tuesday over house lists) trickled in to the top floor of the SOCH to listen to Pete Davies' solo guitar act.

Davies was actually quite good. He exuded a recognizably freshman earnestness into each clever word of his original songs about complicated romantic situations. I particularly liked his song about resurrected love, as a woman reunites with the man who joined the clergy when she spurned him 27 years ago. His “Autobiography of a Bum” was cool too. For the first fifteen minutes of the performance I imagined I was in the 1940's, a girl with her ear pressed against a radio, tuned to bluegrass. After the last few spectators wandered in, he had us go around and say our names.

But whose idea was it to have concerts in the middle of the week in the Quad? What I love about the Pent House is exactly why it’s a terrible venue for anything that’s supposed to have attendees–it’s almost always deserted.

Poor Davies. He never had a chance.