“What I love about JoJo is the confidence that she exudes on stage and [that she] makes every girl out there want to embrace what makes her unique,” said Jenny Sanchez ’20 after attending the Muhlenberg College Spring Concert on Sunday Apr. 15.
Students all over the campus gathered together in Memorial Hall as soon as the doors opened at 7 p.m., an hour before JoJo’s performance started. The event was spearheaded by Muhlenberg Activities Council (MAC), which sponsors an exclusive annual concert at the end of the semester each year. Students with a Muhlenberg ID were allowed to bring up to one guest for a fee of $15.00. JoJo was added to the list of famous musicians who have performed on campus in recent years, including Mike Posner and Jesse McCartney.
Memorial Hall was nearly unrecognizable in comparison to its usual appearance during basketball games. Half of the court was covered with a makeshift stage, and the room was dark but lit with a variety of brightly colored lights.
DJ Jabari, who opened for JoJo, played music of many genres as soon as students started wandering into Memorial Hall. Jabari got the early arrivers hyped up for JoJo by encouraging them to sing, playing selections that are well known by our generation. Everyone was dancing and singing along to the familiar tunes.
Even though JoJo was supposed to start singing at 8 p.m., DJ Jarbari played until twelve minutes past eight and JoJo entered the stage eight minutes later, wearing a black dress and high-heels, and sang with her band of three: a drummer, a guitarist and a pianist. What was supposed to be an hour-long set ended up lasting 37 minutes and ended three minutes before nine. Members of the audience were surprised that JoJo’s concert was so short.
JoJo opened with her song “Clover” and ended with her song “F*** Apologies.” When it was first announced that JoJo was going to perform, I thought I never heard of her. After going to her concert, and hearing her sing her two most famous songs, “Leave (Get Out)” and “Too Little Too Late,” both released in 2006, I realized I did know JoJo and that I used to love those songs. “Leave (Get Out)” was the first song JoJo released in her first album “The High Road,” when she was 12 years old.
“The concert was awesome! My favorite parts were when she sang ‘Leave (Get Out)’ and ‘Too Little Too Late’ because those are my favorite songs of hers,” said Amber Zion ’20. “I’ve known about JoJo ever since I watched the movie Aquamarine when I was in elementary school, and I love how good she sounded live. She sounded just like she does in recordings!”
JoJo engaged with the audience by directly talking to them and taking selfies with them. A lucky student was invited on stage to take a selfie with JoJo because the singer loved the letter she left for her in her dressing room.
“I thought it was great and lots of fun to attend. My favorite part was [reliving] my childhood with old songs and new ones from her new album and ‘Tringle’ [JoJo’s word for an EP made up of three singles],” said Sanchez. “I actually have an older sister that listened to her growing up and that’s how I found out about her … so I guess you can say I’m a fan from way back when, then I followed her on Twitter and found out about her ‘comeback’ and her new music that way.”
