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Last year's Roots, Rock and Reggae festival was a popular event, and with the addition of four more bands, the annual concert has been renamed the Flat Tail Festival.

Flat Tail Festival returns with Ghostland Observatory

Seven bands of differing genres, food, beer planning to entertain Quad in annual music festival

By: Candice Ruud

Posted: 5/30/08

Pizza, a beer garden and live music will be present in the MU Quad tomorrow from 3 to 11:30 p.m. to celebrate the Flat Tail Festival, an annual concert event formerly known as the Roots, Rock and Reggae festival.

This year, seven bands will perform, including featured artist Ghostland Observatory, who come from Austin, Texas, and played at the Sasquatch Music Festival in Washington last weekend.

According to their website, the band will be traveling as far as Norway to perform due to their recent popularity.

Ghostland Observatory's frontman vocalist Aaron Behrens' onstage energy has been compared to that of Freddie Mercury or Prince.

Thomas Turner, producer and drummer for the band, draws his electronic influence from Daft Punk and Green Velvet, among other groups, according to the band's MySpace page.

They have been described as "difficult to classify," but very high-energy and upbeat.

Ghostland Observatory is expected to perform as the final act of the evening, preceded by bands Intervision, Canoe, Amadan, State of Jefferson, the Badfish Band and the winner of tonight's 2008 Battle of the Bands, which will also take place in the MU Quad.

According to Samantha Murillo, a program director for the MUPC and head of the committee that put the Flat Tail Festival together, the reason for changing the festival's name is that this year, the event will feature a broader variety of music aimed at pleasing a larger crowd.

Because the event is partially paid for by student fees that go to the MU, Murillo expressed the importance of pleasing as many musical tastes as possible to draw more people to the event.

The MUPC's goal is to ensure that student fees fund activities that students are interested in.

In the past, three artists from separate genres have played the event - a rap group to represent the "roots" part of the title, a rock band and a reggae band, from which the festival derived its former name, Roots, Rock and Reggae.

This year, with seven bands on the playbill from a wider spectrum of musical genres, the MUPC decided on a name that was reminiscent of a beaver, the flat-tailed OSU mascot.

Aside from musical entertainment, there will be booths selling food in the quad throughout the festival, as well as a beer garden serving pizza and beer for those 21 and over.

Candice Ruud, senior reporter

news@dailybarometer.com, 737-2231