Guster, Pi Kappa Phi draw $20,000 for charity

What do you get when you combine Guster, a good cause and Irvine Auditorium?

A full house.

On Sunday, the band Guster headlined the Pi Kappa Phi charity concert benefiting PUSH America, the fraternity's national outreach program, as well as the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Tickets for the 1,700 seats sold out a month and a half before the show.

"It was an awesome opportunity to see Irvine turned into a rock venue," said Pi Kapp Philanthropy Chairman Steve Bursky, the event's organizer.

The concert was a financial success, the College junior added. Combined with proceeds for a raffle sponsored by STA Travel for an all-inclusive trip to New York City and admission to the concert after-party, the show raised a total of $20,000.

The benefit concert, which began three years ago, featured Dispatch last year and was hosted at the Electric Factory, raising $45,000.

This year, in light of the different venue, the frat was forced to play a greater role in the concert's organization. Nevertheless, "it went extremely well," said co-organizer Ronny Grunwald, a Wharton sophomore. "It was great to see the entire frat -- 60 to 70 guys -- come together to work toward a great cause."

Plus, "there was a lot more Penn support this year," Bursky said.

Though doors opened at 7 p.m., opening band The King of France, on tour with Guster, did not take the stage until 8 p.m. The quirky band from Brooklyn amused students with lines such as "to be the Buddha, you've got to kill the Buddha."

By the time Guster took the stage at 9 p.m., the auditorium was packed. Despite assigned seating, a mad rush was made for the front of the stage as the lights dimmed. Students packed the front and the aisles as well, as Guster opened with "I Spy" from the band's 1999 album Lost and Gone Forever.

The set, which included songs from all three of the band's albums, also featured a few titles from the upcoming Keep It Together to be released in June.

"This time, we threw away the rules that our instrumentation had been binding us by for the last couple of albums," Guster drummer Brian Rosenworcel said. "I play with sticks on about half of the album, which is much less painful than the signature abusive hand-kit I've been beating on since college."

"I think it's just the next step in our band's evolution toward better songwriting," he added.

As popular favorites such as "Demons," "Airplane Song" and "Fa Fa" came on, students held up cell phones in lieu of lighters, and, at one point, even began blowing bubbles.

The show ended with an encore of the popular "Parachute" as well as a surprise solo by Rosenworcel, who sang Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

"It was an emotional performance. I sang it from the heart," he said later.

"I had an amazing time," said Lindsay Witte, a senior at the University of Delaware who came all the way to Philadelphia, despite the fact that the band will be playing at her school later this week.

"I thought this was the best Guster concert I've been to," said Engineering senior Andrew Schwartz, a Pi Kapp brother. "It was fun not to have to go very far -- I just walked a couple blocks."

Even the band seemed pleased -- "I loved the concert," Rosenworcel said. "That venue was amazing."

After the concert, Pi Kapp hosted a party at the 12 Lounge bar, part of The Bridge: Cinema De Lux, where students had drinks with the band.

"They made an effort to talk to everyone," Bursky said. "They were very approachable."

"They were really great guys," added Grunwald, who spoke with Guster at the after-party.

The band -- lead singer Ryan Miller, Rosenworcel on the bongos and drum set and Adam Gardner on guitar and vocals -- assembled in the early 1990s after meeting at Tufts University.

"We started writing songs together in our dorm rooms, even though our instrumentation didn't add up to a conventional band," Rosenworcel said.

Originally calling themselves "Gus," the trio began compiling its first album Parachute in 1994. With the release of Goldfly in 1996, the band's popularity grew, and the 1999 album Lost and Gone Forever made a big splash.

Though they have done some other, smaller charity shows, the band seems hopeful to do more.

"I think we're at the point now where we can make it a point to pick a cause and do a show for it once per tour," Rosenworcel said, adding that personally, he'd "like to help out UNPLUG, a California-based organization that fights commercialism in classrooms... but that's more of a personal political ideology than a universally benign cause."

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