Last Friday, Eastern Exposure, a music festival hosted by East Hall, brought cheers and applause among the mosh pits of the chilly night.     

The set included four hours of student performances, including a battle of the bands that featured  Potential Novelty’s last performance, as well as Steel Mugs, new group formed by Anton Alstrom-Brookhyser and Josiah Miller, two first-years.

Kate Bodiker, a junior writing and communication double major and East resident shared about the start of the event. “It started with Birch and Bee! The Band playing on a pallet on the other side of East [in 2022]. And then it kind of just got bigger from there. And it really peaked my freshman year when [Daniel James ’24] and [Gabe Martinez ’24] lived in East. And it was huge. It went almost until 2 a.m.,” she said.

This year they wanted to make sure that the show would not take as long, “because a lot of people have complained in the past that it’s too long,” Bodiker said. 

She talked about how the process was to get the performers.  “I started out a while ago by just putting a form in the Communicator.” She added, “So then a few weeks later, once I had coordinated some with them, I sent another email that was like, hey, last call if you want to perform.” she added “and I think I got eight or nine responses maybe to that, in the end, I believe we had 16 performers.”

Dontaye Albert, a senior theater major, is the drummer for Potential Novelty. “The event was done really well, and I’m really glad people stayed out for as long as they did because it was definitely worth it.” 

“Huge shout out to Res Life and East Hall for putting on good events the past three years, I’m excited to hear about what happens next,” he said.

Albert continued, “I’m going to miss the band a lot, but I’m honestly just glad that it happened. Eastern Exposure being our ‘last’ set is honestly poetic because our first one was at the very first East concert on a tiny stage”

Jocsan Barahona Rosales, a senior theater major and rhythm guitarist and vocalist for Potential Novelty, said, “I thought that the show, overall, was really great and well structured. In previous years it felt like the event was a bit too long and the acts were too spaced out.” 

Meredith Blossom, a senior English and theater double major plays bass guitar for Potential Novelty. She said, “I think one thing I’ve noticed with us performing together for three years now is that we know how to work together cohesively on stage and bring confidence to the performance, more than we would have in some of our first performances.”

“I also think it’s a testament to how quickly we can come together as a group, because we learned all of the songs only four days beforehand,” Blossom added.

Another band, Hypothetical Fire, also put their set together last minute. Mackenzie Miller, a sophomore communication major and bass guitarist and vocalist for Hypothetical Fire, said, “Half of our band, both [Vaughn Smoker] and [Griffin Eash], were in Tanzania this past semester for their SST. They came back Tuesday evening, so we really only had Thursday and Friday to prepare.” 

Eash, a graphic design major and guitarist for Hypothetical Fire, added, “The concert was amazing and I had a ton of fun prepping for it.” 

Eash continued, “I loved playing in front of campus and the energy they gave off during our set was infectious. The concert in general was such an amazing way to get back into campus life, dealing with the odd feeling of reacquainting myself with Goshen, and it was a great opportunity to see really talented people show off their music.”