An electric night, Betcha and 90’s Kids brought the energy to the Maintenance Shop on Saturday to close out the semester of concerts held by the Student Union Board.

A double headliner, the concert featured two indie alt-rock bands consisting of four people in 90’s Kids and four in Betcha. Providing different energy from each performance, the two bands kept the crowd engaged throughout the whole performance to make it a night to remember.

Having performed at Iowa State about two years ago, Betcha was excited to take the stage on campus again. While in the Great Hall last time, the more intimate setting allowed them to go for what they wanted with an engaged crowd and hopefully make some new fans out of it.

Based out of Nashville, Betcha has worked with a star-studded cast of producers from noteworthy bands such as Jacquire King from Kings of Leon and Brian Phillips, who has worked with Blink-182, among multiple others to get to the position they are in today.

“Especially out of COVID, everyone is eager for any live music that we have a tendency… to just sit and overthink and say ‘man, what are we doing, guys? Nobody likes our music,’” Taylor Dubray, bass and keys player from Betcha said. “Then you just play a great show, and then you get reminded, oh yeah, that’s why we’re doing this.”

Performing first out of the headliners, 90’s Kids took to the stage and immediately went to action. Stopping after the first song to talk a bit about themselves, they continued on and gradually got the crowd hyped.

Based out of Ohio, 90’s Kids formed together in college at Ohio University where they found their way to rising stardom. Gaining inspiration for their name by all being 90’s kids themselves and finding most of their inspirations in making music from ’80s, ’90s and early 2000’s pop. Embracing themselves as an in-between generation for their inspirations, the group took the name 90’s Kids to fully embody who they all were.

Having never worked together before, the two bands were familiar with each other through past run-ins in Nashville. Inviting 90’s Kids out to tour with them, the two groups are excited to start putting on shows again.

Both loving to be able to get out there and perform again, Betcha and 90’s Kids expressed their happiness with putting on a show to give attendees a chance to vent their pent-up feelings over the pandemic. Keeping the energy high and the crowd engaged, there was not a dull moment throughout the roughly two-hour show.

The concert itself was a more crowd-style rather than seated, as normally seen in a good deal of SUB’s events at the M-Shop. The difference in style allowed for attendees of the concert to crowd the stage and feel more engaged as Betcha and 90’s Kids heavily tried to keep the crowd involved through little things like approaching the members of the crowd while singing or shredding away on a guitar.

Having a clear impact, the crowd was visibly loving it. The nearly packed venue showed their love for the performers through the crowd chanting for an encore from Betcha after the show ended.

Listening to the crowd’s demands, Betcha descended from the back room to give them one more song and sang a cover of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone.”

Notably, speaking with the drummer of Betcha before the show, Chase Wofford, they were planning on a cover for the Jonas Brother’s “Year 3000,” but they were not ready to pull that off yet. They promised to get it down for next time though.