BYU NewsNet - Unplugged: Students show off vocal, acoustic musical styles

Great bands, a variety of acoustic music, guitar hero and best of all — free churros.

Guitars Unplugged, hosted by BYUSA Friday night in the Wilkinson Ballroom, was a four-hour event featuring the acoustic guitar and vocal talent of the student body.

Along with all the music, BYUSA provided free churros and otter pops and a room with Guitar Hero.

Benton Paul, a former BYU student now touring the country and scheduled to do a performance with David Archuleta, was the master of ceremonies for the night.

Kyle Beswick, event lead, said Guitars Unplugged has been different in the past, but this year when they held auditions they saw so much talent they decided to have more bands and a longer show than usual.

The show also featured a wide variety of acoustic music, something Beswick said they looked for in auditions.

“We didn’t want it to be a show full of acoustic ballads,” Beswick said. “We have some of those, but most of them are bands that have their own kind of flavor.”

Sure enough, while every band featured an acoustic guitar, the similarities often ended there. They were accompanied by trombones, banjos, violins and bongo drums, as well as the more typical keyboards, basses and drum sets.

One performer simply strummed a ukulele while singing a popular Jason Mraz song while the audience sang along. Another performer threw animal sounds into his song.

Kaitlin Mann, a freshman majoring in English, said she came to Guitars Unplugged to watch a friend perform but that she also particularly enjoys acoustic music.

“I like that with acoustic you can hear their voices and the words matter,” Mann said.

Nicole Shean was among the performers that night, a senior majoring in media music. She said she started performing after she took a song-writing class her junior year and loved it so much she started doing it all the time.

“It’s awesome to perform at BYU because all your friends can come and support you,” Shean said. “It’s also good to know it’s going to be fun, uplifting music.”

Some of the more well-known bands that night were Truman, Roller Coaster for Henry, Kung Fu Fax Machine, Thousand Paper Cranes and the Broken Hearted Rounds, who closed the show.

Beswick said the purpose of the show is to feature the local scene, in particular those performers who would not otherwise be heard. They also sold CDs at the end of the show featuring the bands that had performed.

“Students hear music they have never heard before and may never hear again,” Beswick said. “So they get a chance to buy a CD at the end and have a memoir of this BYU experience. I think that’s pretty cool.”