I walked into Barefoots this past Friday, where the din of chatter and the smell of espresso instantly greeted me. I looked around, seeing the excited and slightly nervous faces of freshmen along with the more relaxed, but no less excited, faces of upperclassmen. It was the first Barefoots concert of the year, and there was some (okay, maybe a lot) of pressure for Z. Swann and The New Respects to put on a good show.
Z. Swann took the stage and hyped the crowd up with some folk rock tunes. Two of the band members, Jay and Rob Griffith, are Union alums. At one point, Rob said to the crowd, “Ayo!” and the crowd responded with a resounding, “Bulldogs!”
After a short intermission, The New Respects took the stage. The band is comprised of twins Zandy and Lexi Fitzgerald, their brother Darius and their cousin Jasmine Mullen. The band plays music that is a blend of soul, folk, rock and something entirely their own, which is a combination rarely heard at Barefoots. The band immediately had the crowd dancing and even choreographed them a little, like in their song, “Hands Up,” where they told the crowd to put their hands up when they sang the words (you guessed it) “put your hands up.”
For the most part, the songs encouraged bopping and clapping, but at one point, the band members got off the stage, and the crowd formed a circle around them. They sang an acoustic version of their song “What Makes the World.” The crowd was uncharacteristically hushed as everyone listened to the message of love, comfort, and healing. Before the song, one of the band members shared a little bit about her own struggles.
“It was good to hear their pre-story about it, like how Zandy talked about depression and just struggling through a lot of things and like, I relate to that, she relates to that, he relates to that, that’s just so relatable,” said Anna Slabetska, a junior TESOL major.
After a few more songs, The New Respects left the stage with much clapping and cheering. This was the second time that The New Respects had been to Union, and some Union students had even covered “What Makes the World” at an Open Mic Night. Slabetska, Madde Ely, a senior biblical studies and languages major, and Laura Griffith, a junior TESOL and intercultural studies major, are three members of the band, Just Sisters, who covered the song. All three were at the concert and dancing in the front row.
When I asked Slabetska and Ely what it was like to see the band perform the same song they had performed in the same place, they both said at the same time, “Wild.”
“It was surreal. It was really surreal,” said Ely.
Griffith laughed a little when I asked her and she told me, “I cried real tears.” All three talked about how special the concert was and the sense of unity that The New Respects created between themselves and members of the audience.
For the most part, it seems that The New Respects did not disappoint and even exceeded expectations.
“I hope they keep getting people that have musical style a lot like The New Respects that is just not very mainstream Union, if you know what I mean,” Griffith said when asked about future Barefoots concerts. “I just think that it’s really good to have all of us experience that as a student body and see the really amazing things about different styles of music that we’re maybe not as familiar with, and I think that the Barefoots team does a good job with that.”
Photo courtesy of Joey Echeverria