‘Vo met een harde V (‘Vo with a hard V’) isn’t your typical student party. It’s a full evening’s program with bands and musicians sharing a stage. The name of the concert is a parody of Guus Meeuwis’ concert series ‘Groots met een zachte G,’ only with ‘vo,’ the student term for bravo.

The student bands have performed live on stage before, during anniversary galas and the intro, but never as the main act. That needs to change, the concert’s co-organizers Roel Hazelhof and Stan de Rijk believe.

“We want to promote student bands,” says De Rijk, and that includes his own band MAVO. That band came up with the idea for the student concert before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. However, the realization of the plan took so long that De Rijk currently is the only student among the bandmembers. “But not for much longer, I hope. I’m supposed to graduate in January.” By that time, he will have completed his master’s program Control Systems Technology at the department of Mechanical Engineering.

Group of friends

The fact that the concert will finally take place is largely due to the efforts of Rheoricadispuut Tau, which is responsible for organizing practically the entire event. Society member and Mechanical Engineering student Hazelhof, who has been busy preparing the concert since May, is glad that the concept is an apparent success. In fact, all 400 tickets are sold out already at this point. “This means that we’ve made ends meet financially.” Much to their relief, because the society is in no position to suffer a loss of 50,000 euros. “We’re just a group of friends, if we hadn’t been able to make it work financially, we would have been in trouble.” But he doesn’t need to worry about that any longer, in part thanks to the financial support offered by several parties, including Stehven.

Now is the time for the fun of anticipation. De Rijk is still busy with some of the final preparations for the show, during which Aeris Brass Band and Kordaat will perform, among other bands. There will also be performances from guest artists, including singer Kafque, whom Hazelhof refers to as a ‘party trick.’ “He’s a member of our society, and he’s really good at singing along with singer Kafke (known for the song ‘Springen,’ ed.). We often ask him to perform in front of an audience during festivals, and it’s a huge success every time.” The singer won’t sing along to a recorded tape this time, instead, he’ll be accompanied live by MAVO. It could very well turn out to be Hazelhof’s personal highlight of the show, he says.

Door policy

A total of some 25 musicians will be performing live during the event. “It is going to be one big show,” De Rijk says. The idea is that one set will follow the next one seamlessly. “Everything will be strung together over a period of four hours. We share instruments, and we change plugs as fast we can. That will be quite a challenge, but we’ll manage.” There is a special door policy, to ensure that everyone can start partying the moment they enter, he explains. “The doors close around 22:00 hrs., that’s when everyone needs to be inside.” However, the doors of the main hall will remain closed for a bit longer: first, visitors will be ‘hyped up’ in Dynamo’s common room. That won’t be necessary as far as organizers themselves are concerned. Hazelhof: “I feel butterflies in my stomach, we want to create something unique that we can repeat for years. This is a trial concert with nothing but green flags so far.”