Warm air and popular throwback tunes filled the Quad last Saturday, the latter courtesy of Philadelphia-based band Go Go Gadjet.
“We try to keep everything very upbeat and fun, so everybody is dancing and moving your bodies and just expressing yourselves, as we also express ourselves,” said Alyssa Lee Lewis, one of two vocalists in Go Go Gadjet.
Go Go Gadjet played largely 2000s music, including Usher, The Killers, Lady Gaga and System of a Down. The band consists of Lewis, her fellow singer and the leader of Go Go Gadjet, Rayvon Rheed, guitarist Pete Macartney, drummer Joel Bermudez and Luke Anderson on bass and synth.
One of the band’s “staples,” according to Reed, is playing 30 songs back-to-back, one minute each.
“I never experienced that, really, where the bands go back to back to back without really having any pause,” concertgoer Denisse Villegas ‘25 said. “It was awesome.”
“She has a great range,” Brynn Beffert ‘27 said about Lewis.
Beffert said she didn’t know about the performance until she encountered it and the audience of 50 on the Quad.
“I love having concerts,” she said. “It’s fun to have things going on, especially in the spring.”
Go Go Gadjet recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary. Of its current members, Rheed has been with the band the longest, at 10 years.
Rheed said that he loves the band because “you really get to connect with people and actually find out what impact you have on them.”
Go Go Gadjet has played a Penn State dance marathon, opened for T-Pain and Lil Jon, toured the West Coast and visited Abu Dhabi.
“We’re trying to build our private party market,” Rheed said.
Lewis said that the band’s goal is to “be a band that you can just rely on.”
While Go Go Gadjet only played covers during the concert, they have original songs on several different music platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music.
Teri Richter, the director of events and hospitality services, wrote in an email that her office had originally planned the Go Go Gadjet concert for September as part of the vice presidential debate events. When the debate was cancelled, the office rescheduled the concert.
Richter said there were limited options for rescheduling, leading the college to host the concert during Easter weekend.
“I think there could have been more energy,” Villegas said when describing the atmosphere on the Quad. She speculated that the smaller crowd could have been due to students going home for the holiday.
Villegas said the concert reminded her of Lafchella and the Spring Concert.
“More events like that would be awesome, especially because now, today, was a beautiful day on the Quad,” she said.
