Jay Sean and Flogging Molly will deliver some European flavor to the Last Day of Classes festivities this year.
LDOC committee co-chairs Liz Turner and Christie Falco, both seniors, announced Tuesday afternoon that R&B artist Jay Sean and Irish rock band Flogging Molly will co-headline this year’s LDOC concert, scheduled for April 28 at 6 p.m. Pop-rock band Rooney and ska band Big D and the Kids Table will open the show.
LDOC is an annual free event sponsored by the LDOC committee and open to the entire Duke community, including undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff.
The event is not open to the public and extra measures will be taken this year to ensure the safety of students and the campus, Turner said. For example, all Duke students must have their DukeCards with them throughout the entire event.
“We took those measures because we want to avoid property damages or any safety issues that have happened at past LDOCs,” Turner said.
This year’s LDOC features a wider range of music genres and international headliner artists. Turner noted the committee planned artists who would be appropriate for the event’s energetic atmosphere. Last year, students complained that Ben Folds’ music was too slow and a poor fit for LDOC even though Folds is a great artist, Turner said.
Jay Sean is a British singer-songwriter who made his 2004 debut with “Me Against Myself.” His third overall and first American album “All or Nothing” was released November 2009. The album’s single, “Down”—featuring rapper Lil Wayne—reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
“More than anything, Jay is just really happy to get out to the colleges and meet his fans and see everyone up close,” his day-to-day manager Thara Natalie told The Chronicle in an interview last month. “That’s why he’s really excited to do the colleges, to meet the older crowd, not just his teeny-bopper fans.”
Flogging Molly, which formed in Los Angeles in 1997, is an Irish rock band influenced by traditional Irish music, according to the band’s Web site. The band combines traditional Celtic instruments such as violin, mandolin and accordion with modern electric guitars and drums.
“We’re not a traditional band,” Dave King, Flogging Molly’s Dublin-born singer and songwriter, wrote in the band’s biography on its Web site. “We are influenced by traditional music and inspired by it, and we put our own little twist on it.”
Rooney is a five-piece band from Los Angeles that formed in 1999. It is best known for its popular singles “I’m Shakin’” and “Blueside.”
Big D and the Kids Table, a Boston area ska band that formed in 1995, has released several albums in its 15-year history.
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