Saint Radar frontman decries Veishea wristbands; band will play free show Saturday

By Bill Cleary
Daily Staff Writer

If you didn’t want to shell out the five bucks for a wristband to see a show at Veishea this year, one Ames band is putting on a show you can still catch.

Saint Radar is performing a free show at 7 p.m. Saturday on Central Campus.

The band was asked to play the free show by the Veishea committee last January. Because of this opportunity, Saint Radar, a perennial performer in the Veishea Battle of the Bands, forfeited its spot this year.

“It would have just been unfair if we’d had a chance to play in the Battle of the Bands,” said frontman Ben Shin, junior in sociology.

In response to the recent backlash against the Veishea wristband policy, Saint Radar has stressed the fact that the show is free through Facebook groups, friends and a series of YouTube videos showing the band members getting pumped up for their performance.

“It’s an economic matter,” Shin said. “I know a lot of students that are unhappy about the wristband — they’re unhappy about having to pay a fee.”

Shin disagrees strongly with this year’s wristband policy, but still supports Veishea and wants to be part of it — and he thinks his fellow students should, too.

“Don’t show your dislike for the wristband by not going to Veishea at all,” he said. “Go to a free show.”

Shin does feel that this year’s concert decisions have missed the point of Veishea, though.

“I’m not gonna say outright that Veishea screwed up — I understand what they were trying to do,” he said. “You have to understand that, for as long as I’ve been at ISU, Veishea has been about the student body … Doing the wristband thing is more or less a slap in the face.”

Saturday’s show will be Saint Radar’s third-to-last. The band will also play a charity show at the M-Shop on April 16, and its final show will be at Bali Satay House, 2424 Lincoln Way, on May 3.

Even with his upbeat attitude toward Veishea, Shin doesn’t understand the reasoning behind the Veishea committee’s decisions this year.

“You’re alienating the people who make Veishea happen,” he said.