In a light brown jacket and blue jeans, Ari Hest matched the casual atmosphere of the Pick-Staiger Concert Hall Saturday night as he opened with a song he said he wrote three days ago. Four lines in, he stopped.
“I forgot the words already,” he admitted, eliciting laughter from the audience as he picked up right where he left off.
About 100 people saw Hest and two other main musical acts as part of a tour sponsored by the organization Music Inspires Health. The concert weaved health messages into the performance in the form of brief films projected onto a small screen before each act began.
The Canon Logic, the first opening act, had most of the audience clapping along for their set after the electric guitarist began an overhand clap.
After the second film about binge drinking, which starred Communication senior Kate Presutti, April Smith and the Great Picture Show performed. The five-person group played seven songs, with Smith taking turns on and off the guitar. She also delivered a personal message about the risks of smoking.
After the final film, the screen was pushed to the side, and Hest walked on stage. Aside from a few technical mishaps, which Hest deemed “awkward,” he switched to his 12-string guitar. He played for more than an hour, mixing in background details about most of the songs before he played them.
Fourth-year Feinberg student Brian Kwan said he thought the idea to blend music and health information was solid and that the performances were strong, but the videos could have been better fleshed out.
“I think that they kind of got the message across, but it was a little bit crude just in terms of the way things were depicted,” Kwan said.
Each two-minute film covered a different topic, with the first focusing on bulimia, the second on binge drinking and the third on HIV/AIDS. The films ended with several slides that offered information on preventing risky activities.
Hest said he did not have any specific health message he wanted to share with the audience, but rather he wanted to support the tour itself. He is performing at all five of the tour’s stops.
“Each topic that they are showing films about is important, and at one point or another everybody in the audience is going to be subject to one of them at least,” Hest said. “It’s much better than just being lectured about all these different health-related topics.”
NU a cappella groups Purple Haze and Freshman Fifteen, as well as the dance and drum ensemble Boomshaka, performed before the first film.
Communication junior Samantha Soto said she found Smith’s message on smoking effective but that the concert could have provided information about lesser-known health issues that confront young adults.
“I thought it was a great learning experience, but I kind of already learned all that stuff freshman year,” Soto said.
Benjamin Levy, a fourth-year medical student at Emory University and founder of Music Inspires Health, said the organization is working to develop a curriculum that incorporates the videos for instructing college students about healthy behaviors in their first month of school.
“We’re just trying to do something that’s more interesting than what college and high school students normally see and really grab their attention and entertain them and just kind of have fun with it,” Levy said.
