By Paula Diaz, Features Editor
I had pizza with Smallpools.
For those of you who don’t understand why this is so exciting, I’ll go back to the beginning and explain.
Smallpools, an indie pop band that formed just last year, has slowly but surely been gaining various fans across the nation. After touring with bands like Neon Trees and Twenty One Pilots, among others, the band has joined forces with Magic Man for its first headliner tour, which began this past October.
Just this past Friday, Nov. 7, I had the chance to go see the band itself on their tour stop at the Mercury Lounge in Louisville. I knew every song (five in total) by Smallpools, the majority of the songs by Magic Man, and was ready to get the night started.
On first impression, the venue was small enough to give the feeling that it was for more of a private, exclusive audience. The crowd, which felt like it was filled with more 15 to 18 year-olds than college aged students, did nothing to take away the excitement that I, along with the rest of the group I had gone with, were filled with.
The opening act featured Waters, a sort of odd and eclectic group that kept the audience entertained but not enough to overrule the excitement from the group that followed them, Magic Man.
But then, after much anticipation, Smallpools finally made their debut at the Mercury Lounge’s stage. The audience roared with excitement and the moment everyone had been waiting for was finally at hand.
With Sean Scanlon on vocals, Mike Kamerman on guitar, Joseph Intile on bass, and Beau Kuther on drums, the group played their full EP along with a couple of their singles that are expected to be released in their first full album this coming spring.
The atmosphere was incredible, the band itself was amazing, and all that was missing was the big moment after the concert that my group had been waiting for.
A week before the concert, juniors Jake Halm and Gabe Willison consistently tweeted Smallpools, inviting the band out to pizza after the concert. While the band had responded to the tweets with a possible, “yes,” the two decided to go even further and make a cover of one of the band’s songs, Dreaming. After changing the lyrics around with more invitation for pizza after the concert, Halm sent the band a tweet with the cover, to which the band then officially responded with, “Looks like we’ll be getting some pizza later, great cover! Ha.”
Our hearts were filled with excitement, nervousness and anticipation.
Before we knew it, the band’s guitarist exchanged numbers with Willison, making our pizza outing more than official.
Pizza was ordered, stories were shared and laughter rung from the whole group. The fact that an up-and-coming band was so willing to sit down with a group of fans after a concert was surreal. Sometimes it seems that once a band gets a big name they forget that they would not be where they are now without their fans, and boy did this group make sure to show their appreciation for us.
So, just to rephrase it and make it more than just something that felt like a dream:
I had pizza with Smallpools!