Although it was not explicitly advertised on campus, Chatham recently sponsored Thrival Innovation Festival: a week-long event throughout the city of Pittsburgh that ended with a two-day concert in Hazelwood. The festival was held in a large open field located beside an old abandoned steel mill by the river, which was slightly creepy but overall a solid place to host a music festival. The entire festival was powered by solar power, something that many people believe is not a valid option here in cloudy Pittsburgh, but it worked out well! Food was provided by a collection of local food trucks, with options ranging from brick oven pizza to cupcakes and ice cream. The only complaint about the food was that the vegetarian options were scarce, and vegan options were nowhere to be found, but overall it was fun to sample from the different trucks. Along with the trucks, local clothing shops and interesting companies such as a 3-D printing company had booths set up.

There were acts playing one of the two stages the entire time, but 8 o'clock each night was when the headliners started to play. On Friday, Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness played first at 8, and got the crowd thoroughly warmed up for the rest of the night. Andrew himself had a great stage presence and was always moving around, including jumping on top of his piano a few times. At the end of their set, the large balloons that they had around them were passed out into the crowd and somehow strategically popped all at once at a certain part of their second to last song, releasing confetti. It was pretty magical.

Wale performed next, and although I do not listen to hip-hop or rap music so I cannot judge how good the performance was, the crowd for Wale was very clearly having a great time. Throughout the set, he had the crowd shout back phrases at him, which kept them engaged and dancing. The best thing he did was at the very end; Wale had the crowd part in half and hopped into the now-empty middle zone to perform inside the crowd.

Closing the show that night was Panic! At The Disco, who I was there to see. Brendon Urie's voice did not disappoint. Throughout the night, he showed off his vocal range by hitting incredible falsettos, to which the crowd would cheer. They performed mostly songs from their newest album, Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die, and a few of the songs they chose to perform from that album were, in my opinion, too slow for a live performance. For example, "Collar Full" is catchy, but is not upbeat and interesting enough to yell along to at a concert. Their performance closed with "Nearly Witches," the final song off of their album Vices & Virtues (and my personal favorite Panic! song), crowd-favorite "This Is Gospel," and of course the always popular "I Write Sins Not Tragedies." Overall, they did not disappoint.

Saturday featured Lights as the 8 p.m. performer, who is the reason I returned for the second day of music. I had seen Lights live before, and she was wonderful then, and was equally as wonderful this past Saturday. Her crowd was small, but they were all clearly dedicated, including a college-aged boy who screamed "LIIIIIIGHTS" throughout her entire performance, and a small group on the barricade that were waving a Canadian flag (Lights' home country). Lights performed a great range of songs from both her newest album Little Machines, and the crowd-favorite Siberia. Older fans may have been disappointed that nothing from her very first album, The Listening, was played, but it was understandable since she had a shorter set and most of the songs from The Listening are slower. Despite some guitar issues, Lights' performance was, as people in the crowd were saying, "lit a.f."

Performing next were Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, who had an extremely large crowd of dedicated fans. Again, I don't know much about rap and hip-hop, so I cannot accurately review their performance, but the crowd was definitely feeling it. At one point, they brought a young child up on stage who gave a flawless little rap performance. They followed that with a small speech about how important our youth is, and the crowd (and I) responded very well to that. It is clear that their fans left satisfied.

Finally, closing the entire festival, was Manchester Orchestra. Although I do not personally listen to them, a friend I was with is a big fan, so she got me into the show very easily. Their performance was very dynamic and overall just a good show. My friend claims that they are better live than in their recordings because they experiment with different sounds live. Their crowd was definitely into the performance since after the band left the stage, the crowd continued to cheer for a few more minutes until the band returned for an encore.

Overall, Thrival was a fun way to end the summer, and I have high hopes for it to return next year.