At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 1, Jamrich room 101 will, for a few hours, lose its lecture-hall status and become a venue for local bands and politicians.

The 2008 Campaign Kickoff Concert will host Marquette bands Grass Monkey and Boogie Tank, while allowing students to register to vote and meet local candidates.

The event is in correlation with the arrival of the Michigan Federation of College Democrats, according to Jason Morgan, sophomore political science major and vice president of the NMU College Democrats. The stop at Northern will be one of many along a tour of several college campuses in Michigan.

The NMU College Democrats wanted to show the visitors what it is like in the U.P. and hope to make a good impression, said Morgan. He added that it should be a memorable experience to keep them from forgetting about the existence of NMU.

“Whatever they see here is going to be their view of Northern,” he said. “So it would be really nice to have students there (at the event) to show them that Northern is really active and progressive in doing a lot of good things on campus.”

The Michigan Federation of College Democrats will also be attending a NMU College Democrats meeting on Tuesday and helping them with ideas of events and other activities for the next month, said Morgan.

“They might have some last minute voter registration ideas, because that’s our focus right now,” he said. “So they might be able to help out a little bit.”

He added that Lt. Gov. John Cherry, who visited NMU on Friday, Sept. 5, helped to sponsor the Michigan Federation of College Democrats on their tour of college campuses.

Bart Stupak, who is currently running for re-election, is the featured speaker of the night, but there will be a variety of Democratic local candidates, said Cameron Fure, president of the NMU College Democrats.

“Our goal is to get students to come out, listen to good music, and mingle with local candidates for office,” said Fure. “If you are a voter and you have questions about someone running for office, you will be able to meet with them in person and ask them questions yourself.”

Fure compared the event to Rock the Vote, which utilizes music, pop culture and technology to encourage young people to vote He added that the intent is to help students gain knowledge of the voting process.

“We’ll have a couple of songs played, then have a candidate speak for a few minutes,” Fure said. “We’ll have all of the College Democrats there with clip boards and information on how to vote and how to get absentee ballots.”

Grass Monkey, a progressive bluegrass band, is excited to play this show because its members are interested in the upcoming election and supporting the democratic cause, said Jake Shea, senior biology professor and mandolin player in the band.

“We just wrote a song that is pretty liberal in the lyrics. It means a lot to us,” said Shea. “We’ll probably be playing that at the concert; it’s called Blindfold.”

He added that the song is about Americans taking off their blindfolds, realizing they need to take charge of their futures and not allowing a war every presidential term.

Shea said he hopes students will attend the event and support the bands and democratic candidates.

“If they want to get out for a good cause, have a good time and listen to some great tunes,” he said. “Get ready to jam.”

Morgan said partisan politics is not an issue with the concert and people of any political affiliation are welcome to attend the concert, listen to the speakers, and register to vote.

For more information on the event e-mail [email protected] or attend the College Democrats’ meeting on Tuesday in Room 311 of the LRC.