University of South Carolina students were treated to a free concert by indie pop artist BØRNS on Wednesday afternoon, courtesy of Carolina Productions.
The concert took place on Greene Street at 5:30 p.m., lasted about half an hour and featured performances of some of BØRNS’ most well-known tracks, such as the singer’s 2015 single “Electric Love.”
Students in attendance felt that the concert was a good opportunity to see a talented artist in person and to let off steam as second semester finals approach.
“It’s definitely a good stress reliever,” said Mallory Small, a first-year biochemistry and molecular biology student. “Gets your mind off school for a while and (you) just get to relax and hang out.”
Second-year business student Luke Bartels found that attending the concert was a good way to get in the mindset for upcoming events.
"I've got a hockey game later — [the concert] is a good way to prepare for it," Bartels said.
A Michigan native, BØRNS now resides in Los Angeles to focus on his musical pursuits. BØRNS collaborated with Tommy English and Kennedy to release his “Candy" EP in 2014. This EP brought recognition for his catchy, indie pop sound, inspired by his newfound love for the West Coast. Since his first release, BØRNS collaborated with English once again to produce "Dopamine" — BØRNS' debut album — which released in October 2015.
For those who have followed BØRNS' career for some time, like Small, discovering that he was coming to USC was an exciting moment.
"I love BØRNS," Small said. "I've listened to them before on Pandora and everything, so when I saw they were coming here, I got really excited."
Carolina Productions was originally planning on bringing BØRNS to campus in the fall. However, they discovered that the radio station WARQ was planning on bringing BØRNS to Columbia in the spring, and that they were only lacking a venue. Carolina Productions took advantage of this opportunity and partnered with WARQ to bring the concert to campus in the spring rather than in fall, sparking this seemingly spontaneous concert.
Stephen Simmons,president of Carolina Productions and third-year advertising and media arts student, hopes that this concert will strengthen outside partnerships and increase student engagement with the organization.
"Well, what I hope this'll do is show them that Carolina Productions is an organization that's very willing to partner with outside groups," Simmons said. "We're very willing to work to put on spontaneous and really awesome events. And hopefully it'll kind of get their interest as an organization that both that they can partner with and they can be a part of."
Alondra De La Rosa contributed to the reporting for this article.