This year’s Spring Party Weekend (SPW) was kicked off last Thursday with Phi Delta Theta hosting the second annual Concert for the Cure, featuring performers Aer, Tayyib Ali and John Hamilton. All dona-tions for the event went to two cancer char-ities, Brendan’s Fund and Love of Linda, both of which were instrumental in helping Phi Delt brother Victor Krivitski ’12 in his fight against cancer last year.

The evening’s festivities started off with two Colgate first-years, Shav Garg and Aaron Mentos, who comprise the hip-hop duo of Shav and Mentos, play-ing a brief but energetic set to a receptive crowd. Then Aer, a duo out of Wayland, MA took the stage. Aer showcased why they have been amassing a ton of momen-tum of late, playing a set of hits from The Reach and their latest EP, What You Need. The smooth, summery guitar riffs and beats of tunes such as “Wonderin’ Why,” “School” and “Feel I Bring” were a perfect fit for the surprisingly good weather that graced Colgate last Thursday.

Rapper Tayyib Ali was next to take the stage. He performed both some of his original songs, such as the crowd pleas-ers “Supermodel” and “Keystone State of Mind” and also borrowed beats from oth-ers, such as Kendrick Lamar’s “ADHD.” As a 19-year-old himself, he was down to throw down and played to the energy of the growing crowd.

DJ John Hamilton closed out the eve-ning, playing an hour-long electronic set. Hamilton’s smooth transitions and strong original production made his work standout above the popular songs that he dropped throughout his set. The concert took a turn to a rave-like atmo-sphere, with fog, lights and glow-sticks coming out in force throughout his set. As it was SPW, everyone was clearly ready to rage by this point and just about ev-eryone in attendance took advantage of that opportunity.

All in all, it was a great night for a great cause.

Contact Pete Koehler at

[email protected].