On Oct. 23, many San Diego State University students dressed up in costumes and made their way down College Ave.
Given the fact that it was a Thursday night, people driving by probably thought there was just another Halloween party happening. However, these students weren’t on their way to any other Halloween party; they were heading to SoundWave’s Halloween house show.
When students walked up the driveway, they were greeted by Vice President Shreyas Basu and Treasurer Allison Francisco-Arriola. There was an entrance fee of $5 for those in costume and $7 for those without costumes.
Shaan Notani, a fourth-year physics major at SDSU, said that she attended the show to support her friend and was excited to see her sing live.
Popular costumes included students dressed as cowboys, various animals and TV and movie characters. For a while, there were just a few students in attendance while the SoundWave members set up their equipment. SoundWave President and Daily Aztec Co-Editor-in-Chief Calista Stocker was seen running around, ensuring everything was working properly for their performance.
The performance started a little later than its scheduled time of 7:30 p.m.; however, this did not prove to be a setback since most attendees arrived late and filled the house’s backyard with excitement and energy.
At 7:49 p.m., Stocker called all SoundWave members to the front to start their performance and thanked attendees for their presence and support.
Setting the vibes for the night, the group started with a performance of the Halloween throwback, “Disturbia” by Rihanna, with Stocker as the lead vocalist. Then, they went into singing “No Air,” by Jordan Sparks and Chris Brown, another throwback song, while not necessarily Halloween-themed. Basu and Music Director Juliette Mansfield led vocals, a dynamic duo on the group’s makeshift stage.
After their first two songs, the group went off stage to allow for solo performances from members. Mansfield was up first to sing an original, acoustic song.
Once Mansfield finished her performance, Ella Crane and Brooke Beckham performed their unique and mesmerizing vocal arrangement of “Dracula” by Tame Impala. The audience was stoked to hear the newly released song, as not many covers of it are available yet. Everyone snapped along and bobbed their heads to the beat, even neighbors were peeking from over their backyard fences to listen in.
Up next was Rhomen Arboleda, a second-year civil engineering student at SDSU, who sang a cover of “‘Til They Take my Heart Away” by Clair Marlo.
“Since the beginning of the school year, we have been preparing for this show,” Arboleda said. “We rehearsed pretty often even though we weren’t sure if we were going to do a Halloween show this year since we haven’t done it in the past two years. We had to prepare a ton of songs for this concert super quickly.”
Even with little time to prepare for the concert, the group performed beautifully, not making it evident how briskly they had to put their performances together.
The group reunited to sing Beyoncé’s “AMERICAN REQUIEM,” which featured layered harmonies that produced an ethereal sound, sending chills through the audience. After, Stocker took over as lead vocalist to sing “Focus” by Ariana Grande.
The last set of individual performances consisted of Addison Allen’s intimate performance of Laufey’s “Goddess,” and a trio performing Fifth Harmony’s “I’m in Love With a Monster.”
For the last song of the night, SoundWave performed a classic Halloween song many students might have heard growing up on Disney Channel, “Calling all the Monsters” by China Anne McClain.
Once the show ended, attendees and members stayed for an after party to celebrate their performance.
“They were amazing, all super talented,” said Celeste Adame, a civil engineering student at SDSU. “I look forward to their next performance.”
Maya Pena, a second-year interior architecture student at SDSU, admired the performance, as well as the amount of students who came out to show support.
“I think it’s quite amazing to see a big group of people come together, and to have everyone’s friends come out makes a nice community,” Pena said.
Arboleda says the next thing for the group will be preparing for their Christmas show and for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. For more information about the group and upcoming performances, follow @soundwavesdsu.
