In a comprehensive overlap of events, the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium and ASUW Arts and Entertainment (A+E) Spring Show both occurred May 16. Across central campus, along the route between the HUB and Mary Gates Hall, UW’s activities offered something for everyone, from the art appreciators to the STEM-inclined.
After watching my friends present their research findings, I claimed my spot at the HUB Lawn, where A+E brings festival-style concerts to UW’s backyard at the bookend of each academic year.
Hours before the show started, a tent full of volunteers was tabling outside the HUB. These volunteers support the four-person A+E executive board in a myriad of ways, including by spreading the word about A+E and providing input about what artists to bring to campus.
Within the ASUW umbrella, A+E’s objective is to ideate and execute events that encompass a wide range of students’ pop culture tastes. Each May, A+E curates a set of established, budding, local, and touring artists to build a stage for — just for the day.
“Even when we’re building out the show, we think a lot about genre and how each artist is going to not only mesh well together, but also provide a little bit of a different sound to each of their acts,” Jenna Carlson, A+E’s program coordinator, said.
The fluid nature of Spring Show incentivizes students to stick around after their favorite acts to discover new musical talent.
“Even though it is a festival style, we don’t typically share the set times. The artists who are here are all here for a reason… I think that the energy at a college is so palpable that the people who we bring feed off of that a ton,” Alison Sabella, director of A+E, said.
As a seasoned concertgoer, I disregarded 5 p.m., the one set time that A+E shared, and headed to the HUB Lawn at around 1:15 p.m. I was committed to seeing the show from the barricade.
I knew I was being ambitious, but not by my friend Vania’s standards, who’d been there since noon. This wasn’t our first time watching Spring Show from the barricade, we actually met at last year’s barricade while dancing along to AG Club and Between Friends.
My barricade claim this year coincided with Sid Simons’ soundcheck. Soon, the sound of his strumming was reminiscent of “AM” by Arctic Monkeys, The Fratellis, and early 2000s alternative indie rock.
During a particularly Alex Turner-adjacent song, an inspired Vania stood up and asked them what song they were playing, to which Simons replied, “Secret Life.”
I joined in. “Wait, yeah, that was really good. I’m gonna add that to my playlist. Who are you guys?” I said, accidentally humbling him, oops.
“I’m Sid Simons, and the song isn’t out yet,” Simons said. “Maybe we’ll play it for you tonight.”
Our brief interaction built anticipation for Simons’ set that grew as Kim Frasier, a student band and this year’s Battle of the Bands winner, took the stage promptly at 5 p.m. A self-proclaimed “3 piece shoegaze band” via their Spotify biography, Kim Frasier hyped up the growing crowd with their heavy rock and enthusiasm.
Opening with his newest single, “The Lie,” Simons and his band members reclaimed the stage at 5:40 p.m. Simons describes his music as “lemon pop with a bit of sexy.”
“It's a little sour and a little dark at times, but it’s all bundled up in pop sensibilities,” he said.
Simons’ setlist was full of upbeat indie rock bangers that sent him strutting across the stage, grabbing the microphone stand and listeners’ attention in the same breath.
“Look at you guys. F---, you guys are beautiful, sexy,” he said, flirting with the UW collective.
About halfway through his set, Simons pivoted away from his guitar, vocalizing at center stage until making his way to the edge. He stood directly over me and seemed to look everywhere but into my eyes, until — there it was — he bent over, smiling and raising his eyebrows as he made eye contact with me.
An eyebrow raise. That’s a new one for a barricade frequenter who has been stood over by the likes of Josh Lane, Arlo Parks, and Tyke James.
A few lyrics later, I heard Simons sing the phrase, “in our secret life.” I shrieked and tapped Vania — he’d delivered on his promise, tailoring the setlist to us. The power we held!
After his performance, I called Simons over and asked for the setlist — this was my souvenir for the night. In between the unreleased “Teeth” and “Toy Gun,” he’d inserted a little arrow where he scribbled “Secret Life.” Other notations like “(Zach Skin riff)” and “(Four on the floor)” were sandwiched between songs.
As he tattooed my paper with his signature, I exclaimed, “You played ‘Secret Life!’”
“Because of you,” he said. What does one even say to (top) that?
While there’s no competing with our interaction, renowned performers Ravyn Lenae and Zack Fox charmed the crowd with their charisma. Lenae’s relaxed, cohesive R&B set and expressiveness healed the audience before Fox’s DJ mixes energized them.
Fox aptly described Lenae’s show as a “warm cup of chamomile tea,” which he juxtaposed by calling his own “a Celsius mixed with some crushed Viagra.” “There’s room for both of those,” he said.
The three-and-a-half hours between Kim Frasier and Fox were infused with everything I love most about concerts: the physicality of a performer’s eye contact, movement, and personality.
It’s one thing to see A+E post on Instagram to market their Spring Show — a post which, might I add, got a whopping, record-breaking 47K views and 1.8K shares — but it’s another to watch the HUB Lawn fill up with college students seeking to actively experience music over passively listening online.
The mere act of music attracts a crowd, but the rawness and human element of live performance is what sustains one. Hearing the backstory of Lenae’s “One Wish” illustrates this difference.
From a coordinating perspective, these in-person interactions make A+E’s job feel less transactional. Carlson shared a particularly unique vulnerable moment.
“I slipped on the grass and caught myself, and was like ‘nobody saw, we’re good,’ and then I see Zack laughing to himself,” Carlson said. “I’m like, ‘oh no!’ He was like, ‘that was a great save.’ It’s funny to have some of those very human and very natural moments with them when sometimes they can feel out of reach.”
My humanness came in the form of banter during soundcheck, when Vania and I brought “Secret Life” out of Simons’ voice memo recordings and onto the stage.
Reach wrier Julia Neville at arts@dailyuw.com. X: @juliaaclare7. Bluesky: @juliaaclare.bsky.social.
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