My Friend Court and His Band

By Jay Warnick

I met Court my freshman year in 2006, we lived in the dorms together. He was always musically inclined; he even composed a few songs for a movie I made. We left school, and went on our missions, and I hadn’t seen him until last week. I saw him in the library, we caught up, and we got on the topic of bands, and that’s how I found out he and his group were playing at Guitars Unplugged.

Court, Ashby, Nate, Jaren, C.W., and Alyssa were all group together in a corner in the Kirkham building Thursday night. At first glance they all look like normal students here at BYU-Idaho, but last night they were something more.

Thursday night was the opening night for Guitars Unplugged, and for tonight this group of students came together to form “Battle Cry,” a young band formed to play this event. All of them crouched over instruments; guitars, bass, violin, a pair of drumsticks, a tambourine, and a violin, are preparing for sound checks.

A young red haired manager approaches the group and updates them on their spot in line and that she’ll come get them when it gets sooner to their time.

Nate, the leader of the band, gives Alyssa tips on tambourine rhythms as C.W. practiced his solo. All the members of the band have been playing for years two of them since 4th and 6th grade, the rest of them about 15 years combined, so they are no strangers to performance, yet all of them have a slight nervous look in their eyes.

“The Things They Carry,” is the name of the original song they wrote just for this concert. Named after the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brian, the song is about a person lost with no direction, but they find hope and meaning. With some personal meaning behind the song the group has a little more motivation than the rest.

The young redhead returned and led them down a long hallway and down half a flight of stairs where the group waited on the landing of the stairwell. The whole time while waiting they practice small parts of the song, probably the ones that gave them some trouble. Except now Alyssa is touching up her nail polish in preparation for their performance in a few short hours.

“This is the problem with having girls in the band,” Nate leans over and whispers to me jokingly. The group have only been together since the beginning of the semester, but they act and work together like a veteran rock band.

“Hey guys, do they have cables?” Court questions the group as he is taking his bass out of its bag. Court seems the most nervous to me, maybe cause he’s my friend and I worry about him too much.

“Battle Cry” is ushered on stage; this is where I left them. I was able to sneak into the back of the auditorium and watch their sound check. The stage turned green, and my friend and his band take their positions. They sound good, sincere, and this was just sound checks. I couldn’t stay for the real performance, but I’m sure they did great.

All I can say is that I’m glad I ran into Court in the library the other day.

A Closer Look at Guitars Unplugged Auditons

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Talent Performance Adapts

Jay Warnick

“It’s not about you!” This is the motto for training leaders for running talent performance activities here on campus. Krisann Leavitt is the director of talent performance, this semester she oversees ten different shows, four coordinators who oversee twenty-one managers who run the shows.

Leavitt spends probably about 5-6 hours a week just in meetings, this doesn’t include other outside preparations and on a busy week can spend up to 10 hours preparing and planning. Much of the time spent in meetings is to train the coordinators and managers to become better leaders and better people focused on helping other students.

Talent performance is not just to entertain the masses of BYU-Idaho but to give student opportunities to develop and display new skills. Talent performance not only offers shows for students to perform in but workshops to try new things; including dance, guitar, even writing workshops.

With the ever growing and diversifying population of our campus talent performance is growing and changing with it to try and create activities that appeal to everyone. They are trying out new shows and events that target specific crowds; like a new show called iPod Idol where contestants come and sign up and perform a song from their iPod.

Leavitt has been in talent performance for many semesters and loves it. “There’s more to this school than just academics,” she says. “Talent performance enhances your college experience, you get to meet new people and it makes your time here more memorable.”

So, whether you’ve been here one semester or ten, talent performance is your ticket to maximizing your college experience here at BYU-Idaho.