<ve’s lineup isn’t as impressive this year as it was three years ago, according to David Mills ’14. Many of the Cave’s memorable acts--Dan Deacon, Fuck Buttons, YACHT, and No Age--came during Mills’s freshman year. But, Mills said, “it could be that we were absolutely torpedoing the budget a few years ago.”
According to Mary Begley ’14, the booking manager at the Cave, “when [those bands] came, they were not very popular yet, but after they played at the Cave they started getting 10s on Pitchfork. We are not necessarily bringing in bands that are already popular, but about to be.”
One way that Begley and Cave Manager Caffi Meyer ’14 are trying to improve the Cave is by enhancing the lighting and atmosphere. Last week, the student body voted to allot $20,000 to replacing the Cave’s fluorescent lights. The new lights, Begley and Meyer said, will be dimmable and repositionable, which will foster a warmer, cozier environment for studying, relaxing, and enjoying coffee and snacks.
The proposal is concerned only with the lighting off-stage because, Meyer and Begley said, they are most concerned about attracting more students on weekday nights. They hope that, with new lights, the Cave will have more of a “coffee shop” atmosphere, Meyer said.
Over the next few months, we can expect to see some exciting changes in the lighting at the Cave. The new lighting should create a more inviting aura in the nation’s first student-run pub—a welcome reprieve from the stress of day-to-day life at Carleton. But as Camila De la Vega ’16 says, it’s the people that make the Cave really special: “It’s not about the lights, it’s about the people, and the atmosphere that people create there.”