Cliff’s Veishea Notes

Corey Moss

Veishea week is just beginning, and I’ve already absorbed enough Veishea entertainment to put my spring fever to rest for a very long time.

Once again, the Daily’s A & E section is going to provide an in-depth guide to the events going on as part of Iowa State’s spring festival, and once again, our deadline came sooner than I expected.

But, after a long weekend in the Daily office, we made it, and you can expect to see our Veishea Entertainment Guide in Wednesday’s paper.

I realize this is Veishea week and some of you have better things to do with your time than read 12 pages of Daily entertainment coverage.

I also realize that college students are lazy. I am. I read Cliffs Notes.

So, I’ve decided to give you a Cliffs Notes version of our Veishea Entertainment Guide.

If you are one of my journalism professors, please stop reading now, as this column is entirely conflict of interest, since I am on the Veishea Entertainment Committee. (I’m the non-greek one.)

If not, here are some quick notes (from an insider) on some of the events going on this year:

“Wild Thing Wednesday”

No, this event is not at The Main Event, nor does it involve exotic dancers of any kind.

We’re talking Tone Loc. You know, “Hey you two, I was once like you, and I like to do the wild thing.”

Lately, Tone’s been doing the acting thing, but word is, the man can still flow with the best of ’em.

Note: Tone Loc is not the early ’90s rapper who has since become the leader of a hard-core band. That is some other guy.

Veishea Center Stage

This event doesn’t involve strippers either, but it does include the next best thing — former hair-band rockers turned balladeers.

Actually, the Goo Goo Dolls still rock pretty hard live. A few years back, the Dolls opened for Bush at Hilton and stole the show.

Of course, my review wasn’t well-accepted by the many who attended and were bored before and after “Name.”

At least this year, those lamos will have “Iris” (better known as “And I Don’t Want the World to See Me”) and “Name.”

There’s no local opener (thanks to the management of the aforementioned balladeers), but there will be a couple of decent alt-rock bands in the New Radicals (the only band that has the balls to make fun of Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson in the same sentence) and Dovetail Joint.

Note: No boom-box orchestras this year. I promise.

Dew the Rec

The event formerly known as Rock the Rec redefined itself as the place to be for laughs last year, as Kevin Nealon and Willie Farrel left lasting impressions.

This year’s Dewing should be equally amusing with Dave Chappelle as the headliner.

Chappelle is best known as the comedian who rips Eddie Murphy to shreds in “The Nutty Professor,” but he also has a thick stand-up resum‚ and has appeared in “You’ve Got Mail,” “200 Cigarettes,” “Con Air” and “Half Baked.”

Note: Hilarious openers The Cartwright Brothers are not a country band, though they could pass as one.

Taste of Veishea

The fact to plug for this event is that none of the musical acts on this year’s Taste of Veishea Stage have performed at Veishea before.

Friday will feature a blues night (nothing like kicking off the weekend on an upbeat note) featuring Shannon Curfman, a 13-year-old guitarist dubbed by critics as the next Jonny Lang, along with Iowa groups Scarlet Runner and Big E and the Killer Bees.

Saturday will feature the rock ‘n’ roll adventures of the Sauce Monkeys (playing its first no-alcohol show) and Splendid Roadfish, who will be performing its something about Mary single live on KCCQ sometime this week.

Note: The pom squad will be performing at 5:10 p.m. Friday. They rule!

I’m no Cliff, but I hope this helped. Happy Veishea.


Corey Moss is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.