A gentle rain fell from the sky as music poured from the speakers that surrounded the academic quad at Colgate’s fifth annual Gatestock this Saturday, September 9 from 1 to 5 p.m. Over the course of the day, approximately 400 students took part in events including live music, food, games and tie-dying. Gatestock, which is run annually by Broad Street Records (BSR), enables both students and members of the Hamilton community to enjoy an array of talented musicians. During the course of the day, five student bands in total performed with about a 45 minute time-slot each. Those who performed included: Codename Falcon Punch, Unhinged Gates, Body Electric, No Standards and Quincy & Friends.

According to Publicity Director and junior Zac Lomas, being in BSR gives students the chance to get to know other musicians on campus. This allows them the opportunity to form new bands and enter into the Colgate music scene.

“We kind of have a general idea as to what student bands exist. We have a jazz band that has consisted of a lot of BSR members. They’re called No Standards. They always put on a great show. Unhinged Gates have been around for a while and we kind of just see and feel out like who else wants to start new bands,” Lomas said.

Even though Gatestock is set up and run by BSR, many other student groups have begun to get involved in the process. In an effort to cut down on costs and engage more students in the event, an assortment of clubs and organizations are starting to provide amenities, especially food and activities, for the annual music fest. Gatestock has also moved up the hill to the academic quad in an attempt to increase first-year participation in the festivities.

“We used to get all of our food from outside sources,” BSR President and senior Sam McCollom said. “First of all it gets more collaboration in, like The Caribbean Student Union, Culinary Club and Blue Diamond Society (BDS). So we get a lot of multicultural groups in. We also moved it up to the academic quad which give it more to first-years.”

Treasurer and senior Brian Crofton expressed that seeing Gatestock during his first year at Colgate inspired him to get involved in BSR and enabled him to find a community of students that he could really connect with.

“I joined Broad Street Records my sophomore year after having seen Gatestock my freshman year,” Crofton said. “Sam [McCollom] did it and put it on and invited me and I went and was totally shocked. It was probably the first actual Colgate event that I went to. It was pretty much just like a really cool, very relaxed atmosphere and it really kind of set the tone of what I expected Colgate to be and at least found in Broad Street Records.”

Throughout the year, BSR has meetings every Sunday at 7 p.m. in the Africana, Latin America, Asian, Native American Cultural Center (ALANA). According to Lomas, the group has given him the opportunity to simultaneously make friends and help create a “Hamilton arts scene.” Crofton agrees that BSR is a great way to meet people who share the same musical interests. Besides putting on Gatestock, BSR has an extensive list of connections to musicians all around the school.

“We are an under-utilized resource in that we have connections with pretty much every musician and organized band,” Crofton said. “There’s a big need for musicians on campus and there’s a big need for individual musicians for these bands and we know most of them. And so I was telling people at the activities fair, ‘whether or not you want to join this club, if you care about music or play any kind of music then we are an important people to stay in touch with.'”

Contact Erin Mincer at [email protected].