For the past two years at Illinois State, the university has hosted a concert during welcome week called "Quadchella." Both years have had great turnouts and some amazing artists took the stage to perform. For Silas, he had the chance to perform twice! His first time performing at Illinois State was last year and his team traveled by car, all the way from Maryland! Fast forward a year later, Silas was making the trek down to ISU yet again for another Quadchella performance.
Thursday came up quickly and we had some things planned for the day before Silas' performance on the quad. We grabbed some Portillo's and stopped by a retro clothing shop in town called 309 Retro Roof. We bought a few things and headed back to get ready for the show. After a quick sound check, it was time for Silas to take the stage and do his thing.
Silas started by thanking ISU for bringing him back to perform at Quadchella. Soon after, the music started and the sounds filled the entire quad. He performed over 15 songs and had the chance to show ISU how diverse his music was. From boom bap to dance, Silas had the audience engaged with his performance. He performed tracks like "Waterfall" and "Way Up." In addition, he performed some tracks from his most recent full-length project titled, "V." Silas played some of his favorite singles and even some from "SKiWALKER." And last but not least, Silas performed his biggest song to date, "Eastside." As of today, "Eastside" has racked up over 335K plays on Spotify! That is a huge accomplishment and it was easy to tell how excited Silas was to perform the track.
Towards the end of the show, Silas had a large crowd of people watching him perform. "Eastside" had the entire audience dancing and enjoying the last song from Silas. The energy throughout the show kept getting better and better! It was amazing to see people come together and show love for an artist they may not have been familiar with prior to the show. From my experiences, smaller artists will start performing and throughout the show not have much of a turnout. For Silas, this was not the case! He continued to catch the attention of the students and engage them in the show. As an artist that is growing his brand, this is huge for his long-term goals.
Without a doubt, Silas made his mark on Illinois State's Quadchella. He put on a great performance and even gained some new fans! By growing a fanbase, an artist's career can become full time and long-term. With that being said, support your local artist's because for some of them, it's their wildest dreams to make music full time. Make sure you check out Silas on Twitter, Instagram, Spotify, and more.