Published: October 03, 2009 06:22 pm         

MARK BENNETT: Once the scene for homecoming concerts starring the likes of Bob Dylan, ISU now struggles to attract big acts

TERRE HAUTE — Nostalgia is a tricky substance.

Dragging too much of it around is unhealthy. But bygone moments of success are worth remembering and, perhaps, revisiting. And when it comes to an event such as a university’s homecoming, Memory Lane should play a prominent role. Alums enjoy returning to see traditions still alive, along with the progress and change.

Next autumn, there should be an Indiana State University homecoming concert in Hulman Center.

Some Sycamore alums have musical homecoming memories, and that ritual is worth reviving. My freshman year at ISU — 1978-79 — was unique, I’ll admit. No one (who is remotely realistic) expects another NCAA finalist basketball season or national fallout from a Steve Martin visit. But the excitement surrounding the ISU homecoming concert that fall can happen again in the 21st century.

I probably wasn’t the only kid on campus who’d worn out Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” album when word broke that he was coming to Hulman Center that October.

Already a legend but still in his prime, the 37-year-old Dylan had two mammoth, double-platinum, No. 1 albums close in his rear-view mirror (“Blood on the Tracks” in ’75, and “Desire” a year later) and another biggie under way (“Slow Train Coming” in ’79) when he played the ISU homecoming show. I saw it, along with 7,788 other people.

Of course, the music industry and the economy have changed in 31 years. Big acts are harder to land for a market the size of Terre Haute. Still, the idea of adding an evening of music in Hulman Center — even with a less iconic artist — to the ISU homecoming weekend is not an impossible dream, even though that hasn’t happened since pop-rocker Eddie Money performed in 1995.

A concert would bring together alums, current students and people in the community, just as the homecoming parade does and the homecoming football game should do if the ISU team was winning.

Laudably, ISU planned to add a concert this year. The Hulman Center staff arranged an R&B-flavored lineup of Babyface, After 7 and Fantasia for 7 p.m. Oct. 24. That’s a solid offering — Babyface (a.k.a. Kenneth Edmonds) is a Grammy winner, and Fantasia won on “American Idol” in 2004. Unfortunately, just days after contracts were reached and the university announced the show, the deal with the artists unraveled, said Charlie Potts, ISU associate vice president for student auxiliary services. Tickets never went on sale. On Tuesday, ISU President Daniel Bradley decided to cancel any plans for a 2009 homecoming concert with alternative performers, Potts said.

Though disappointing, this cancellation has refocused ISU’s strategy for restoring Hulman Center’s status as a viable concert venue. Since John Mellencamp drew 5,138 people (at $51 a ticket) on Oct. 26, 2007, the building has hosted one music concert. The band Skillet led a three-group, Christian-rock lineup that brought 1,000-plus fans to Hulman Center in April.

Potts and the Hulman Center staff plan to study the track records of similar facilities at like-sized universities, including Eastern Illinois, Western Illinois, Southern Illinois, Ball State and Western Kentucky. They’ll find out if student fees go into a concert fund at those schools, if the universities fund the shows, or if community sponsors help cover the cost of paying touring artists up front.

The goal is to offer shows by artists from a variety of genres, which the ISU students desire, Potts said. That would be a huge change. The facility painted itself into a reputational corner by leaning heavily on country acts since the 1990s. (In 1994, for example, Hulman Center staged six concerts and all were country.) It’s a safe practice. Country fans are loyal, and show up steadily.

Still, when asked if that single-genre saturation complicates the task of luring non-country performers, Potts said, “Absolutely, positively.”

A related problem is community involvement, he added. Though originally named Hulman Civic University Center, the facility is “100 percent” owned and operated by ISU, Potts said. If corporate sponsors co-promoted concerts, the artists’ fees could be split with the acts’ promoters. That would give ISU leverage in seeking an array of bands, instead of promoters skittishly assuming that only country works here.

And then, of course, people have to buy the tickets and go.

“There’s two kinds of support [needed] — front-end support, and butts-in-the-seats support,” Potts said.

With the right acts, Hauteans will show up. Comic legend Jerry Seinfeld sold out two shows (at $75 and $60 a ticket) at Tilson Auditorium in January 2008. Mellencamp sold well in 2005 and 2007. The Blues at the Crossroads Festival drew more than 7,000 people to Seventh and Wabash last month.

Of course, Blues fest admission was just $10. Price matters in Terre Haute, Potts said, and students need tickets to be in the $10 to $30 range. That would’ve been the case with the Babyface show; student ticket prices would have ranged from $36 to $11, while general-public tickets were $51 to $21. When that show fell through, they considered entertainer Jamie Foxx, but that up-front fee of $125,000 was too high, Potts said. Earlier this year, he added, Hulman Center came close to landing country-pop singer Taylor Swift, but her popularity skyrocketed and she wound up going to Indianapolis.

“Respectfully, it is difficult to draw a name to Terre Haute,” Potts said. So, to make that happen, “We are going to have to participate in the promotion,” he added. “We” would mean the university and the community.

For now, Hulman Center is working to arrange a concert for spring 2010. Hopefully, that happens and leads to a modest rotation of, at least, a concert each spring and each homecoming. A homecoming show makes sense pragmatically, “because there are more people around,” Potts said, and symbolically, because it can bring the campus and the townspeople together.

The community could benefit by rebuilding a tradition of homecoming concerts, starting next fall.



Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.

Hulman Center was frequently the site of concerts on the weekend of ISU homecoming from 1974 to ’95. Here’s a list of those shows (attendance in parenthesis):

1974 — Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (7,124)

1975 — Loggins & Messina (4,604)

1976 — Neil Sedaka (7,281)

1977 — Tom Jones (6,303)

1978 — Bob Dylan (7,789)

1979 — Bob Hope (7,767)

1980 — Dionne Warwick (3,899)

1981 — The Beach Boys (8,261)

1982 — Michael Murphy, Terri Gibbs (1,337)

1995 — Eddie Money (2,171)

Note — Three concerts fell on the eve of ISU homecoming, including John Mellencamp in 1987 (9,089), and Sawyer Brown in 1993 (5,767) and 1994 (5,550).

     

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