Daily Skiff

Since you're reading this, chances are you've heard of The Aardvark. If you've heard of The Aardvark, you've also probably heard of the Austin-based band Nelo.

Thanks to the plethora of on-campus posters and TCU's daily e-mails, you are almost surely aware that Nelo played at the Brown-Lupton University Union Auditorium last Wednesday. But judging from the embarrassingly small crowd, you most likely weren't there.

I don't mean to imply every student is a Nelo fan, but hundreds of people have waited in long lines and paid more than $10 to see Nelo play at The Aardvark.

Could it be that students are so obsessed with alcohol that they refuse to attend a dry on-campus show, even for free? I considered this when I stopped by after my night class last Wednesday.

A more likely explanation is that Nelo fans on campus had prior commitments at 8 p.m. that day. This is entirely feasible since there was a TCU basketball game going on and more than 50 classes beginning at 5 p.m. or later.

You may be wondering whose idea it was to plan the concert at such an inconvenient time on a Wednesday night.

That would be the Programming Council of the Student Government Association. The Council uses money from the SGA fee on tuition to provide entertainment for the student body. That money is like TCU "tax dollars," and SGA has an obligation to use it wisely.

The Council may legitimately desire to serve the student body, but I've never seen the student body polled on who they would like to see perform on campus - not even before the $100,000 Pat Green show last fall.

Student leadership is difficult, and it's impossible to please everybody. But there seems to be a barrier between student leaders and those who they are elected to lead. That kind of barrier is unacceptable, considering it's the student body's money being spent.

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