This Friday at Ignition Music Garage, five Goshen College musicians will be telling a story about love and its various stages through the mediums of jazz, funk, R&B, folk and pop.

The performers, Maggie Weaver, Sadie Gustafson-Zook, Jacob Penner, Galed Krisjayanta and Andrew Pauls, seniors, fondly named their show ‘Funk, Love, and Other Delights’. Sonny Carreño will be accompanying the students on drums.

The story of this show is a love story in and of itself, a union of two love stories: Weaver’s love of music and Steve Martin’s, owner of Ignition Garage, love of music. Weaver had wanted to do a traditional senior show but realized that her love of jazz and musical theater begged for a more conducive environment than Reith Recital Hall.

Her vocal teacher, Rebecca Dengler Kaufman, suggested she look for off-campus venues that would “provide the atmosphere that best fit the style of music [Maggie] loves to perform.”

Meanwhile, Steve Martin had been looking to get millennials into his record store to show them what music is supposed to sound like. Being a young person during the late ’60s and ’70s, he was exposed to arguably the biggest musical revolution in history.

“There was some amazing music recorded in those days,” he said, “there was something amazing coming out every month.”

Martin laments the prevalence of the MP3 as the cause of “a whole generation of people who have never really been moved in a big way by music.”

MP3s came into power with the emergence of Napster and the pirating of music. The miniscule size of the file allows it to use less storage, but a song must be stripped down to fit into an MP3 file and this requires a plethora of nuance to be lost. Martin just wants young people to come hear whole, pure, unexploited music and fall in love.

Martin has been trying every which way to get Goshen College musicians to use his space, so when Weaver proposed her show, he didn’t hesitate to say yes. Martin hopes this event will bring more Goshen College students to Ignition concerts and the Ignition stage to help the music scene in Michiana return to its former glory.

Weaver is pleased with the unexpected way this show is playing out; she feels privileged to be able to collaborate with some amazing musicians and hopes that people will come support their friends and share in the excitement and fun.

“I think the show is going to be a blast,” said Weaver. “One of my favorite songs I’ll be singing is ‘You Go Down Smooth.’ It’s really upbeat, has a great bass line and will make people want to dance.”

Gustafson-Zook is looking forward to singing “Natural Woman” because it’s “about how being loved is being able to be entirely myself and not holding any part of myself back.”

“I also think [the song] is about the woman being free, not worrying about how she is perceived,” said Gustafson-Zook.

Pauls will be portraying a more playful side of love with the song “Back Pocket.”

“I like the playful nature of love, being able to goof around with someone,” said Pauls. “Sometimes I feel like a kid around my significant other, and I’ll try to channel that when I sing the song.”

Penner is excited to share the chemistry of the group with people.

“One of my favorite things about love is the ability to have kinds of intimate conversations that are more easily had in the context of love,” said Penner. “The whole process of playing in a band like this is one big conversation.”

Krisjayanta will be performing “Ordinary People” by John Legend and will channel the complexity of love.

“I guess my favorite thing about love is creating your own story, even though it’s complicated sometimes,” said Krisjayanta. “If you work hard for it, you’ll get what you need; you never know what to expect.”

Student tickets to ‘Funk, Love, and Other Delights’ are $10 for one and $15 for two. Non-student tickets are $15 for one. The show starts 7:30 p.m. this Friday at Ignition Music Garage.