'Music for the angels'
It took Chicago musician Mer more than a day to locate his Northern Illinois University buddies after news of the Feb. 14 shooting came down through a flurry of text messages. In the end, no one he knew had class in Cole Hall that afternoon. But the day's tragedies nonetheless resonated with Mer, who remembers taking the bus twice a week from his Grant South dorm room to the 100-level math class he took in the building's lecture halls during his freshman year.
"It was scary," he says. "Even when I was touring, I was living in DeKalb. I have a lot of friends there."
Less than a week after the news broke, Durty Nellie's in Palatine proposed a benefit concert in support of NIU's memorial scholarship. Mer, who attended NIU for nearly three years before pursuing his music career full time, was among the first of 10 bands to sign on.
"This is all just a reminder that we need to realize that our lives are extremely fragile," he says.
In a heartfelt press release announcing his participation at Nellie's show Monday and another benefit at Otto's in DeKalb on March 22, he wrote: "Music has always been a way to say the things we never got to say, and music will always remind us of the ones we love and miss."
Hordes of similar responses flooded Durty Nellie's shortly after Mer's did, forcing show organizer and Iowa State University senior Sarah Dolezal, 22, to cap the bill at 10. The lineup includes many of the pub and music venue's cover-band regulars, as well as a few acts who said they'd drop everything to participate and a Hoffman Estates-based rock group called Washro who called the club and asked to perform.
Dolezal stretched the show from 3 p.m. to midnight. Tickets cost $10, all of which will be donated to NIU's February 14 Student Scholarship Fund and the DeKalb-Sycamore Community Memorial Fund, which aims to raise money for a town memorial.
For Dolezal, organizing the show meant empathizing with college kids everywhere who watched in horror as a school so similar to their own was struck by tragedy.
"It's really cool for me," she says of being asked by her uncle, one of Nellie's owners, to pull the benefit together, "because being a college student, I am really sympathetic with what's going on. All universities are affected by this."
One of Dolezal's roommate's friends had a class in that Cole Hall lecture hall just an hour or so earlier. That, almost more than anything, prompted her to organize the whole thing from her Iowa State dorm and take off a few days from school to travel home.
Aside from a full lineup that includes Modern Day Romeos, Mr. Blotto, Stellar Road, Dave Tamkin and "Next Great American Band" runners-up Dot Dot Dot, Palatine businesses donated prizes and gift certificates to be raffled off throughout the evening. All raffle profits also will be donated to the scholarship and memorial funds, as well as much of the servers' evening tips.
That's good enough for local musician Tamkin, who told Nellie's he'd cancel any previously scheduled show that night so he and his trio could play the benefit.
"The idea of music is to be uplifting, to put your spirits in a better mood. Going there, that's our intent, but it's so sad," he says.
It's a tough line to walk, he says of balancing a rock event with the memory of those directly affected by the shootings.
"Hopefully we'll be playing some music for the angels," he adds.
Though Nellie's asks $10 for tickets to Monday's show, extra donations will of course be accepted. Your second chance to donate to NIU funds happens later this month when Otto's partners with Twisted Wish productions for the Huskie Healing Benefit show. Performers include the Biltmores, Agent Zero, Cold Water Mystic and Broken Vegas. Visit huskiehealing.com for more information.
NIU concert fundraiser
Durty Nellie's, 180 N. Smith St., Palatine; (847) 358-9150; durtynellies.com
Tickets: $10 at the door
Lineup: Mer; Dave Tamkin; Stellar Road; Dot Dot Dot; Modern Day Romeos; Mr. Myers; Mr. Blotto; Hello Dave; Sixteen Candles; Washro