Preview: Coffeehouse: The 2000s
March 8, 2017
Everyone loves Coffeehouse, everyone loves nostalgia, and everyone loves decades. We combined all three into Coffeehouse: The 2000s and you can see it on Saturday, March 25 at 11:30 PM in the Vines Center. It’s like we combined rising home prices, insanely low interest rates, and little-to-no-money-down incentives into one great, big Coffeehouse, but the only crisis this show will lead to is a crisis of how much fun this is going to be. Tickets are on sale now and are priced as follows:
- All remaining tickets are general admission. That is, there are no more floor tables left.
- $5 from now until 11:59 PM on March 24
- $7 all day March 25, including at the door
You can purchase tickets on our website under the “Tickets” tab at the top of the screen. Just choose the ticket type that is right for you.
There are many challenges we face every Coffeehouse. Choosing the acts and videos, finding the right flow to the show, deciding on and building the decorations, and getting the host prepared are just a handful of our concerns. However, Coffeehouse: The 2000s presented some unique obstacles. One of them should be obvious to everyone: People at Liberty sure do love Coldplay. Judging by their popularity during tryouts, maybe we should call them “The Office of bands”. But how much Coldplay is too much?? Beyond this, it is no secret that the most popular music of the 2000s, how shall we say, is not exactly Liberty Way-friendly. When Eminem is the top artist of this Coffeehouse’s decade, can we truly represent the taste of that decade? Far more seriously, though, the key moments of the 2000s were tragic. Just the events of national significance (9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the recession of 2007-08) were enough to reshape the national psyche, but, odd as it is to say, they were minor in contrast to the hundreds of thousands of lives lost during the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. Needless to say, a two hour show about the 2000s can barely summarize the entertainment of that decade, much less adequately deal with those tragedies.
However, as much as disaster and difficulty marked the 2000s, people’s perseverance and recovery may mark the decade in equal measure. These things inevitably affected the art and entertainment of the decade, and yet, art and entertainment provided a brief refuge from them. This is particularly true of 9/11 and its aftermath. Much has been written about the stability and refuge Americans found in sports in the weeks and months after that day*, especially in New York City. On the creative side, there is as much to suggest that the rise of superhero movies in the 2000s was largely a creative and cultural response to the events of 9/11**. Think also of the critical and commercial success of the best television of the 2000s – The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Lost: they are deep, substantive, gritty, and dark, more exploratory than explanatory, in most cases asking more questions than they answer.
We could name many more examples, and much of that music, movies, and television will make an appearance in a fun and lighthearted Coffeehouse. But we at Student Activities felt it important to acknowledge the truly significant moments that shaped the 2000s, knowing that those moments helped shape who we are, the nation we inhabit, and the art we enjoy.
Now in its 24th year, Coffeehouse is one of the longest-standing traditions here at Liberty. Get your tickets today and join all of us at Student Activities as we present Coffeehouse: The 2000s. If you have any questions, check out our website or our FAQ page to find answers. If that doesn’t help, send us a nice email: studentactivities@liberty.edu.
*See for example: https://www.si.com/sports-illustrated/video/2015/09/11/remembering-september-11-sports-helped-america
**See for example: https://gizmodo.com/where-would-superheroes-be-without-9-11-5837450