The popular campus indie-folk band “Rousseau’Shaughnessy”, comprised of 11 sophomore English majors living in Dillon Hall, is set to play their first public show at Legends this coming weekend.
“This is a really exciting opportunity for us”, said backup-backup drummer and lead triangle Fred Montesquieu. “We were almost set to play AcoustiCafe back in October, but unfortunately we are diametrically opposed to playing at a venue with such grotesque capitalist undertones as the Duncan Student Center.”
Montesquieu’s old band “Voltaire + The Machine” played an AcoustiCafe show in the LaFortune Student Center basement back in November 2017, where the concert was a smashing success.
“That first AcoustiCafe was one of the wildest nights of my life”, said backup bagpipe player and lead banjo Sean Hobbes. “I still remember the mild applause after we played our original single, ‘Kant-ing Stars’. It was unforgettable, seeing 19 people halfheartedly clap between sips of Waddick’s coffee. The atmosphere at Legends should be even better.”
After Voltaire + The Machine lead guitarist Adam Smith was accepted into the Mendoza College of Business in the spring of last year, the band split very publicly.
“That was a low blow, but I wish them the best with their new project,” said Smith. “My style was probably too conformist for them anyways; they were pretty mad when I showed up to a jam session wearing Chuck Taylors instead of the band-issued Vans.”
Rousseau’Shaughnessy drew some campus controversy late last year, when the band staged a performance inside the Basilica of the Sacred Heart protesting the closing of popular O’Shaughnessy coffee shop Waddick’s. Led by lead singer Paul Machiavelli, the group donned balaclavas and began performing the entirety of Paul Simon’s seventh solo studio album Graceland, much to the surprise of the faithful gathered for Sunday Vespers.
Their upcoming show at Legends is already being hyped as “the most socially-conscious concert in Northern Indiana”. With all the band’s instruments constructed by lead recorder player Tommy Paine in his “Beginning Furniture” woodworking class, Rousseau’Shaughnessy wishes to send the powerful message of equality.
“Private property is a social construct”, Paine contended. “A Gibson Les Paul? No, thank you. Give me an organic, fair trade guitar, then we’ll talk.”
The band’s entire Legends show is set to pay homage to Waddick’s and the “true vision of Catholic Social Teaching” provided by the ordinary coffee shop, said Machiavelli. “Waddick’s has taught me so much over the years; we need to show the campus that the culture of a small, unassuming coffee shop will never be silenced and that we do not stand for this oppression.”
Each student in attendance this weekend will receive a free tin of Trader Joe’s Green Tea, as well as a blank sheet of paper to write “whatever may come to mind” as listeners take in Rousseau’Shaughnessy’s electric folk jazz.
The band has declined the acceptance of any royalty check from Legends or Notre Dame, while also making the concert free. When asked how the show would be funded, Montesquieu dismissed the question.
“Let the endowment pay for it”, he said.
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