Mosh pits broke out at the Maintenance Shop on Wednesday as Arcy Drive, an Indie rock band, played their newest single, “Wicked Style.”
“Everybody was so nice and they made so many friends and the music was so goddamn good,” said Annie McCann, a freshman who is studying psychology.
Despite multiple broken guitars and a fire alarm, Arcy Drive kept the energy up through their entire performance.
Austin Jones, who plays lead guitar and sings backup vocals, was impressed by the crowd and the venue.
“We’ve never played anything like that before, and everybody was just really into it,” Jones said.
The chemistry between band members on and off the stage was noticeable. Lead singer and guitarist Nick Mateyunas would turn away from the audience and break into a flurry of stomping and strumming while playing along with drummer Brooke Tuozzo.
Arcy Drive runs its whole operation out of an old school bus. They eat, sleep and hang out in their van while driving across the county for their tour.
There are good days and bad days on the bus according to the band, and at one point Arcy Drive had to cancel three shows because of mechanical issues.
“There was a point in time when we had to cancel three shows on the road because it was breaking down [and] couldn’t go over 40 miles,” said bassist Patrick Helrigel.
Helrigel shared what being a touring band is like day to day.
“We’re truckers, man,” Helrigel said. “Like sailors and truckers, and I feel like we’re just living that same kind of lifestyle where you’re kind of just on the road traveling. It’s nomadic, but it’s gritty.”
When the band isn’t playing a show or driving to the next city, they try and relax as much as possible. Jones described what they did in Iowa the day before their show.
“We went swimming in the lake. We watched an outdoor movie,” Jones said. “Nick’s grandpa had an old tiny VHS combined with a TV kind of thing, and we took that and we brought it outside and we watched ‘Field of Dreams’,” Jones said.
Arcy Drive’s stop in Iowa comes in the middle of their nationwide Stattic Tour.
The biggest stop on their tour was at Lollapalooza Chicago in August. More than 400,000 people attended the festival, and Arcy Drive was one of nearly 170 artists that performed.
“It was kind of pretty bizarre being able to play that festival. I don’t think we’d ever be doing that,” Mateyunas said.
Like most of their sets, Arcy Drive performed at the Maintenance Shop without shoes.
“We’d always practice in Pat’s attic the summer we started. We were practicing in there, and it was so damn hot in there and we were just like in bathing suits, no shirts, and yeah, no shoes too,” Jones said.
When their first show came around, the band put on their shoes, but trouble arose when Jones wasn’t able to use his equipment properly.
“I had the shoes on, and I put everything so close together that when I would use my shoe, I would turn knobs and stuff on the pedals,” Jones said. “I took them off for that and I was able to use my toe, and then it just kind of like stuck. It was like our vibe. It was like a comfort.”
Jones and the rest of the band rocked the no-shoe look at the Maintenance Shop on Wednesday.
”Hopefully our next round of tours are just somewhere in Iowa,” Jones said after the show.
Be on the lookout for new music from Arcy Drive in the next couple of months and check out the full interview with the band here.
