03/20/2009
The hugely popular rock band, O.A.R. (Of a Revolution) will headline the SUNY Cortland Spring Fling concert on Saturday, April 25, at 8 p.m. in the Park Center Alumni Arena (map).
Tickets are $15 for SUNY Cortland students with ID — only one ticket can be purchased per ID — and $25 for the general public with a maximum of four tickets being purchased per person.
While supplies last, tickets may be purchased online through the College Bookstore or at the Corey Union Information Desk Mondays and Wednesdays from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. and Fridays from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. They’re also available in Corey Union, Room 406, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Hailed as one of the best live bands on the planet, O.A.R. has built a rabid following and a well-deserved reputation as a must-see band when they come to town.
In the early 1990s three eighth graders in Maryland, lyricist Marc Roberge, guitarist Richard On and drummer Chris Culos, formed their first group, bonding over their love of Pearl Jam. Three years later, in 11th grade, bassist Benj Gershman came on board and O.A.R. was born. After meeting Roberge and Culos at Ohio State University, saxophonist Jerry DePizzo joined the band full time in 2000.
Eleven years after the group’s first release, O.A.R. has come to stand for authentic rock music that reflects the collective triumphs and tragedies everyone experiences in this world: O.A.R. is seen as real people making real music that resounds deeply with their fans.
The band recently recorded its sixth studio CD, “All Sides.”
“‘All Sides’ represents where we are as a band and how far we have come,” Roberge says. “It makes me love playing music for a living, writing songs, and driving across the country with my best friends.”
“The thing is O.A.R. has never been just one style,” Roberge says. “From song to song we like to switch it up. Maybe in the past we had felt the need to explore just one of those musical alleys and see where it took us. This album is all about recording a variety of experiences with a variety of sounds. Essentially, all sides of O.A.R.”
The diversity of “All Sides” is clear from the first single, the propulsive, jangly “Shattered,” to the reggae influenced “What is Mine” and the thoughtful “War Song,” written after the band’s life-changing USO tour of Kuwait and Iraq last August. The group witnessed the war playing out in front of them as a casual conversation with medics was interrupted when the soldiers ran to save the lives of incoming wounded.
“‘War Song’ is not about our view of the war, it is about the soldiers we met,” Roberge said. “It follows someone who must leave home, go across the world, and be expected to return the same. We thought the rest of the songs on the album should be escapes, not reminders.
“People often tell me that they relate to us and our music, not just with the words, but with the general manner in which we act and perform,” Roberge says. “I tell them that may be because there is no act. We are just five friends playing songs we love to play and enjoying every minute of it. The audience can relate because we are having just as much fun as they are. And we are writing about many of the same life experiences they are living or have lived, not some fantasy world that puts rock bands behind some sort of one-way mirror 10 feet above the crowd.”