The members of Monarch, from left to right, Caleb Loomis, Liam Wallace, Ben Barrett and Ian Olynick, perform at the Pop and Rock club’s show in Scooter’s Saturday night. (Kevin Lynch/The Crest) 
Senior Spencer Douglas Rhoten performs before a rapt audience. Nearly every table in the house had been filled by the end of the night. (Kevin Lynch/The Crest) 
Junior Savannah John, the first act of the night, performs. The lighting during the beginning of her performance matched the mood of her original song, “Violets.” (Kevin Lynch/The Crest) 
Spectators look on during a performance. (Kevin Lynch/The Crest)
Four student acts performed for a packed audience at Scooter’s Saturday night as part of a live concert displaying the expansive musical talent at St. Thomas.
The Pop and Rock club, which organized the concert, wanted to put to use the knowledge its leaders had picked up after their first year as a club for a show that anyone could enjoy, according to junior and club president Ben Barrett.
“We have this club; we have the ability to reserve rooms; there are a ton of amazing artists on campus,” Barrett said. “… So we wanted to do a show on North Campus to kind of showcase that.”
The lineup consisted of junior singer and guitarist Savannah John, senior singer and guitarist Spencer Douglas Rhoten, the band Monarch — made up of Barrett on vocals and guitar, Caleb Loomis on vocals and bass, Ian Olynick on keyboard, Charlie Sedgewick on guitar and Liam Wallace on drums — and junior singer and guitarist Seamus Healy joined by Barrett as well as Brendan Bonin on vocals and guitar, Astrid Kieser-Kisting on violin and Jack McCally on drums.
Audience members trickled in during the first and second shows, resulting in nearly every table being full by the end of the night. The audience was especially vocal during covers of several well-loved artists’ music, including the likes of Britney Spears, Zach Bryan and Chappell Roan.
The influence of the 480 Collective — a student-run record label created within the music business department as a senior capstone project last semester — was also felt and heard throughout the night through the original songs performed.
John and Rhoten were both participating artists in the collective last semester. Rhoten helped John with the lyrics and instrumentals for her original song “Violets,” which she performed as the first song of the night. Rhoten said that while both of them had performed during the collective’s live show in the spring, the experience of hearing music he’d had a hand in being performed was exciting.
“I think the music business program and the music program as a whole is a pretty tightly-knit area, but it is cool to see people bouncing from different projects and areas all the time. It’s really cool,” Rhoten said.
Sophomore Ariana Arnetveit had heard about the show in advance and stayed for the entire duration. As a singer herself, Arnetveit said that she was happy to see students’ work with the 480 Collective given a platform.
“The 480 Collective put out an album last year, and so I knew some of the songs from the album, and so hearing some of those songs live tonight was really fun and a really good full-circle moment,” Arnetveit said.
The collective was changed from a capstone into a regular course this semester in order to keep the project alive with new talent. Junior and Pop and Rock club treasurer Owen Rounds is taking the newly-offered course for the collective this semester and said that he appreciates the combination of both young and new perspectives.
“It’s really new; it’s still a pilot course,” Rounds said. “There’s a lot of experimenting, and it’s really exciting to see what we can do.”
Rounds and Barrett are both excited for the future of the Pop and Rock club, as well. Barrett said that he hopes to put on a similar concert every month with a fresh batch of UST talent so that student-produced music is more openly accessible on campus.
“The funny thing is the music department, for forever and still now, is centered on South Campus with Brady Educational Center and now still with the Schoenecker Center,” Barrett said. “And so we were like, ‘If we can hit North Campus, do something there, we can tap into kind of a new ground.’”
Kevin Lynch can be reached at lync1832@stthomas.edu.