The Bloomington Based pop and R&B band Honey Iced Tea began their opening set at 8:30 p.m. March 6 at the IU auditorium for Peach Pit, an indie-pop quartet of high school friends from Vancouver, Canada.
Honey Iced Tea, an 11-member ensemble, includes three vocalists, saxophonists, a trombonist and bassist. They played a small set, with covers of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” and ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).”
The Bloomington band’s opening set wrapped at around 9 p.m. After a short intermission for set up and sound checks, Peach Pit made their way onto the stage to perform their opening number “Being So Normal” from their debut album.
Made up of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Neil Smith, lead guitarist Chris Vanderkooy, bassist Peter Wilton and drummer Mikey Pascuzzi, the group began self-releasing music in 2016, with their debut EP “Sweet FA.” Peach Pit has since amassed over 2.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify and has performed at Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and All Things Go music festivals, among many others.
The Union Board announced they would host Peach Pit in concert with an Instagram post Dec. 4, 2023, and ticket sales began the next day, starting at $44 for IU students and $54 for the general public.
Carly Mosby is the current director for “Live from Bloomington,” a Union Board committee dedicated to student artists performance opportunities. Mosby was the previous board’s concert director and played a part in arranging the Peach Pit concert from the get-go. Mosby said she did anything from surveying the student body for who they’d be interested in seeing, to reaching out to the talent agency and making sure the Union Board had the amount of funds needed to bring Peach Pit to campus. She was excited to see the show come together.
“It's been months in the making,” Mosby said. “It was just really cool to see throughout the process how happy people were, that was really my favorite thing. Since the beginning of being the concerts director last year, my favorite part is seeing people come together and be happy and get away from stressful things.”
Khushi Sahi is the concerts director who took over from Mosby in December 2023. The two worked hand-in-hand ever since to make the show a success.
“It was probably one of the most rewarding things I have ever done,” Sahi said. “You look back and see everyone has their hands up, they’re singing, just hearing it is amazing. The experience really, really pays off.”
Sahi said some audience members told her they drove all the way from Kansas for the show.
After a few songs, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Smith introduced the band. Bantering with the crowd in between songs, Smith shared he was always nervous to perform at college campuses. It made him feel like it was the first day of school and he should fear the “jocks”, even though he was 31 years old.
Peach Pit performed 18 songs such as “Brian’s Movie” to “Drop the Guillotine” and “Give Up Baby Go.” Smith said to the crowd that it didn’t feel so long ago the band was practicing songs he wrote in lead guitarist Chris Vanderkooy’s bedroom at his dad's house, wanting so badly to play at a DIY venue in Vancouver, Canada. He thanked the crowd for making concerts like the one at IU Auditorium possible.
Smith, Vanderkooy, Wilton and Pascuzzi gave the IU Auditorium crowd a high energy performance, full of dancing, classic rock headbanging and jumping around stage. Their songs each tell a different story, some about recovery, heartbreak and nostalgia.
The group performed “Tommy’s Party,” also from their debut album, as their last song. After minutes of cheers from the crowd not wanting the concert to end, Peach Pit came back on stage to play “Hot Knifer,” “Chagu’s Sideturn” and “Shampoo Bottles” as their closing encore.
The group gave away each of their paper set lists, handing them to members of the audience, throwing them as paper airplanes and even stepping off stage to give to an audience member in the front. The auditorium crowd quickly filed out, some making their way to the stage for photos to document the night’s event.
