By Melissa Young

For the past four years, the members of Mayday Parade have worked hard to make their music as interesting and unique as possible.

The band out of Tallahassee, Fla. will take a break from their five-month tour to come perform tonight for the first time at NMU and the first time in the U.P.

According to Alex Garcia, guitarist for Mayday Parade, the band is looking forward to taking time off their tour to perform for college students.

“Seldom do we play where we haven’t played before and performing for college students is always a good time,” Garcia said. “The students always seem to be into the bands performance.”

The band has five members who have become very close to one another after touring 200 shows in 2010.

“We have been together for about six years and have grown to be really good friends,” Garcia said.

Garcia said all the members are a little different from one another but their main goal is to make their music as broad as possible with a lot of energy.

“We keep the music genre on the lines of emo and rock,” Garcia said. “Overall, it’s just a very powerful, fun and worthwhile performance for our fans.”

Mayday Parade has had opportunities to perform in many countries and branch out to different cultures.

“The first time I went to Japan had to be my biggest highlight because we were basically treated like royalty,” Garcia said.

The band has already started touring and has just announced that they are set to play at this year’s Warped Tour as well.

“I can’t wait to see how many fans of ours go to school in the U.P.,” Garcia said. “Being able to dance and sing into that crowd will be pretty amazing.”

Northern Arts and Entertainment has worked hard to bring Mayday to NMU and, according to sophomore entertainment and sports promotion major Marcela Godoy, NAE strives to bring a variety of entertainers to fit students’ favorite genres.

“Music is a really big part of my life and I found the whole business of putting together a show really interesting,” Godoy said. “I enjoy being able to help bring different types of performers to NMU.”

NAE has brought many performances like Hellogoodbye and 3OH!3, but this year NAE wanted to try and attract a different demographic.

NAE is also announcing that Big Gigantic will be coming to NMU on April 26. Information can be found on their Facebook page.

“Mayday Parade is a really well-known band to those who listen to alternative music,” Godoy said. “It will be awesome to have such a different genre come up here and play.”

Mayday Parade is an alternative/rock/indie group, but seems to be very popular among all types of people.
“If students aren’t familiar with their music, they should still come out because it will all around be a good time,” Godoy said.

Along with Mayday Parade will be Lights Out Dancing, the opening act based out of Minneapolis, Minn.

“They are a really fun band to see perform,” said Brooke Linn, a sophomore zoology major and member of NAE.

The bands look forward to performing in front of the college students here at NMU, Linn said.

“Students can expect a really good time, especially those students who are already familiar with the music,” Linn said. “It always ends up being one big sing-a-long.”

This has been a performance that has been planned for a while now and NAE is very excited to show Mayday Parade off to students.

“They are popular here at NMU because they don’t go into a super specific genre,” Godoy said. “If someone were to listen to more pop music, they would enjoy Mayday Parade.”

The show will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8 at the Vandament Arena, and doors will open at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for the general public. Tickets can be purchased at any NMU ticket outlet, online at www.nmu.edu/tickets, or by calling (906) 227-1032.