After a summer’s worth of work obtaining talent for this year’s Bulldog Bash, Mississippi State University’s annual fall music festival, MSU Student Association members are finally preparing to carry out what they say will be the largest music event in MSU and Starkville history.
“There’s no telling how many hours we’ve worked on Bulldog Bash, more than I can count,” said Tyler Wolfe, co-director of external events for the SA. He and fellow co-director Lauren burns are heading up the Bulldog Bash project, along with the help of SA president Jon David Cole and SA director of financial support Chrissie Prichard.
Wolfe said that there are always more than just four people working on Bulldog Bash, though.
“There are over 200 people, at any given moment, working on Bulldog Bash,” Wolfe said. “Especially on the day of the show, there’s over 200 people building stages alone and even more people getting other things ready.”
Wolfe said that all the work that has been done on the project will hopefully pay off, as the organizers are anticipating the largest crowd in Bulldog Bash history.
“We’re hoping to have 35,000 to 40,000 in attendance this year,” said Wolfe. “We draw in a bigger crowd each year, and with the Georgia fans coming in, we’re hoping to draw in even more people.”
Cole said that the SA isn’t joking about how big Bulldog Bash will be this year.
“Every single year the new SA administration comes in and says, ‘We’re going to make Bulldog Bash bigger and better than it has ever been,’ and it’s so clich, but this year the quality of the show is going to be absolutely unprecedented,” he said. “We feel like we’ve got artists for every type of music fan and we feel like it will resonate well with everyone in the community.”
Wolfe said that Bulldog Bash’s performance line-up is arranged as to satisfy the ears of diverse music lovers.
“Hopefully this year we’ll bring in a wider variety of people; we’ve booked artists from country and rock to R&B and rap,” he said, “[Bulldog Bash] will have something for everybody.”
He explained how the stages will be organized to keep people on their feet.
“The headliners will all be on one stage, Wolfe said. “There aren’t any stages specific to genre, but we will have different types of music on every stage at any given time. For instance, while a headliner is playing, another performer of the same genre won’t be playing at the same time,” he said. “In fact, it will be the complete opposite,” Wolfe added.
As to who the headliners will be at Bulldog Bash 2005, Wolfe said that everyone will have to wait until August 30 for an official announcement.
He did, however, announce the other acts that will fill the stages and the streets in the Cotton District on September 23: Will Hoge of Nashville, Tenn., Chris Love of Memphis, Tenn., Gabby Johnson of Mississippi and Nash Street of Starkville. Wolf elaborated on each performer, starting with a returning performer, Will Hoge.
“I first heard Will Hoge at Bulldog Bash in 2003, and prior to that he has been performing a lot in Nashville, packing out places there,” said Wolfe.
“He wasn’t really well known yet when he played two years ago, but you look at his website and the first thing you see is a list of tour dates, and they just go on forever,” he said. “He kind of does his own thing; he was with a large label, but he didn’t like the way they were treating him, so he left the label. He has his own sound and his own special abilities; he can belt out a tune without a microphone,” Wolfe said.
“Chris Love has been performing around Memphis for awhile,” Wolfe said. “He has a rock and blues vibe mixed with a Maroon 5 kind of sound,” he said. “He has a really good band who have played with really famous people, and he’s managed to gather them together to play behind him. He’s very popular with the Memphis scene,” Wolfe said.
“Gabby Johnson is a really good cover band, said Wolfe. “They are sort of like The Breakfast Club was last year, but they don’t just do 80’s hits. They do everything,” Wolfe said. “We got them because they played a sorority party and everybody loved them, so we got them to play for us this year.”
The final band playing at Bulldog Bash this year is the local bluegrass band, Nash Street.
“Nash Street is a group of Mississippi State students who have actually been together for awhile, said Wolfe. “They’re a bluegrass band, a really good [one,]” he said. “They actually cut a CD at Scagg’s Family Records. If want to record a good bluegrass record, it has to be at Scagg’s,” Wolfe said. “They’ve been playing around Starkville and the rest of Mississippi for a long time.”
Wolfe said he is excited about the acts performing this year.
“For the crowd, it will give them a chance to hear something they’ve never heard before,” he said. “They may go to the show and think, ‘This Chris Love guy sounds cool, I want to hear more,’ so they’ll go on his website, or they’ll see Will Hoge, who was relatively unknown when he played Bulldog Bash in 2003, again.”
Cole said aside the influence of the performers, the location in which Bulldog Bash will be held, the Cotton District, will draw in a larger crowd.
“[The Cotton District] really has an open, New Orleans kind of feel to it,” Cole said. “Everyone has their own individual party going, and it’s exciting because each house or block has its own personality for one night,” he said. “It’s really a neat thing.”
“It’s a picturesque place to put on an event of this caliber. Narrow streets, beautiful landscape, well-designed buildings, hot summer night in the South; it’s the perfect locale for an event like Bulldog Bash,” Cole added.
Wolfe said that he appreciates the generosity and the welcoming spirit that the residents of the Cotton District have as a community.
“The people in the Cotton District are nice enough to open it up and let us in there, and part of the whole reason we have Bulldog Bash there is because not only is it a beautiful place, but it’s all mostly college students who live there and it just becomes one huge party,” he said.
Wolfe noted other perks of holding Bulldog Bash in the Cotton District.
“It’s a big area and it’s very accessible from the university; it’s just a short walk,” Wolfe said. “It’s a very open area that is very well-lit, and the streets are set up perfectly to put three stages on and put on a show. You can’t ask for a better place to put on Bulldog Bash than the streets of the Cotton District,” he said.
Wolfe said that the event will bring in a diverse and abundant mix of MSU students.
“It’s one of the only times you can see a really diverse crowd of State students,” said Wolfe. “My favorite part of Bulldog Bash is right before the main act goes on, you look out into the crowd and it just goes on and on all the way past the Bulldog Deli,” he said.
Cole said that the Starkville city government has been extremely supportive of the SA event.
“Dan [Camp]’s administration has been a great help in securing all the needed resources from the city that we could ask for, and it’s really evidence of his and the board of aldermen’s commitment to see students in the area succeed,” said Cole. “It’s great to see that they’re funding police and fire and sanitation and electric services for an event like Bulldog Bash. We appreciate their help and we really look forward to working with them in the future,” he said.
Students are crying out for things to do while they’re at school and Bulldog Bash is a manifestation of wanting these things so badly that we’ll actually go out and raise the money ourselves just so we can have quality fun and entertainment. It’s huge in student retention rates. If students have a good time here, then naturally they’re going to stay here. If prospective students come to Starkville and go to Bulldog Bash and have a good time they’re going to work towards going to Mississippi State harder. I think that’s an important thing for us to do.
Cole said he is confident that Bulldog Bash will be a successful event this year.
“I trust my team,” he said. “They’ve done an excellent job as far as setting everything up. They’re ahead of schedule and we just couldn’t have done it without them.”
“On September 23, the biggest outdoor party in Mississippi is going to be 100 yards from Mississippi State University. Everyone, no matter what their musical preferences, will have a great time when the come out to the Cotton District,” Wolfe said.