Fortunately for Lee, Dispatch was willing to change the concert date to Oct. 22, although it was under no legal obligation to do so.
Former Council President Paul A. Gusmorino ’02 confirmed that the bid was placed without the proper approval of the council.
"The Concert Commission placed a bid before getting the council’s approval—they are supposed to get the council’s approval,” Gusmorino said. “Those are rules which had just been passed, so there was some question over whether those rules went into effect right away or the next fall.”
Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 said he was aware of the incident but declined to comment on it.
Lee described the series of events as a “non-issue” and said that she was never worried that Dispatch would refuse to re-negotiate the concert date.
Lee said she thinks that “artists want to perform at Harvard and feel like it’s an honor to be invited here.”
Catching Up
The HCC met another hurdle last fall when College administrators were unreceptive to the idea of holding a concert in Harvard Stadium.
Administrators expressed concern that the concert would bring with it major crowd control problems.
“I don’t anticipate an overwhelming vote of support from our Allston neighbors for the idea of 60K-plus people arriving at the stadium in the spring,” Harvard Director of Community Relations Kevin A. McCluskey ’76 wrote in an e-mail to one HCC member last fall.
Since the proposal’s rejection and the Oct. 22 Dispatch concert, little was heard from the HCC. A meeting of the full commission last Monday was the 50-member group’s first of this year.
“This semester has been defined by discussion with the administration,” Lee said. “The bulk of the work has been carried out by the executive board.”
But some members of the commission who are not on its executive board have expressed frustration at being excluded from commission activities.
“There have been e-mails on the list asking if we were meeting, and members were wondering what was going on,” one member said. “Members were feeling in the dark.”
But Lee said she is optimistic that the commission will come together to prepare for next week’s concert.
“We’re in contact with the box office, and getting the hospitality ready,” Lee said. “We even have a preliminary progaram and posters ready, so as soon as the contract is finalized, we’re ready to bombard Harvard with publicity and make sure the word gets out.”
Earlier this year, the HCC guaranteed that it would organize at least two, potentially three or four concerts this school year.
Lee said she considers the Verve Pipe’s performance at last weekend’s Springfest to count toward HCC’s concert quota, bringing the year’s total to three.
“Although clearly it’s not the same as a regular HCC concert because it was free, and because we were working so closely with the president’s office. But I suppose we were still technically involved,” Lee said. “The concert commission has met its goals.”
—Staff writer Joseph P. Flood can be reached at flood@fas.harvard.edu.