Students Compete and ‘CLIQ’ to Bring the Alt-Rock Band to CCSU

By Michael Walsh

In a Facebook-driven initiative, CCSU students are banding together in an attempt to win a free Weezer concert on the Blue Devil campus.

As of Monday night, CCSU held onto 38th place in the T-Mobile-sponsored contest with a total of 1,390 votes, a number that might not seem substantial when comparing it to the leading total of 8,932 votes, held by Florida State University.

But the student who started the Facebook group calling for students to vote in the contest sees things a bit differently.“When I first started this group, I knew that we couldn’t accomplish the goal,” said Justin McGregor, a sociology major at CCSU. “A tiny part in me hoped that maybe we would possibly win and at the very least get our names out their and for people to see that we want a high quality band in Weezer here at CCSU.”

As of Monday night McGregor’s Facebook group currently had 3,092 members, a total not indicative of the actual number of votes the school has. “Hypothetically, if we got every student to band together it would be possible to do. But the likelihood of that happening is slim,” said McGregor. “Mind you that only one third of the people voted. You got to expect that when people join Facebook groups, because they don’t look, they just join and sign off,” said McGregor. If all 3,092 members cast a vote for the school, CCSU would be in a much healthier 13th place.

Even if CCSU can’t pull off a miracle and come from behind to win the contest, McGregor hopes the efforts of the students to compete with large schools such as Purdue University, Rutgers University and the University of North Carolina leaves a lasting impression elsewhere. “Maybe CAN will see this and try and bring Weezer or a big name band here instead of the spring concert we had last year. I hope this gets the eyes of CAN,” said McGregor.

McGregor’s outlook on T-Mobile making the contest winnable to schools with smaller student bodies wasn’t quite as bright. “I personally think they don’t care about the smaller schools. All they care about is the advertising that comes from everyone seeing the T-Mobile advertisements on the voting page. I think they would ideally like the bigger schools to win, because the bigger the school, the more people that see their advertisements,” said McGregor. T-Mobile was unable to be reached for comment.

McGregor likened the social networking site’s contest to similar groups such as the online petition to bring Paranormal Activity nationwide.

“It can work and it does it work for large active communities,” said McGregor. “Facebook is a great medium for this kind of thing. It’s basically free advertising for both T-Mobile and Weezer.”

While winning the contest might be a fantasy at this point, you can still do your part and try and help McGregor make some notice. Just log on to Facebook and search for the “Free Weezer Concert at CCSU” group to cast a vote.