Kris Allen and The Stolen rock out in Seegers

This past Saturday, the annual fall concert was held in the Event Space in Seeger’s Union. The opening act was a four-man rock band called The Stolen, and they were followed by American Idol Season Eight winner Kris Allen, who was the main act.

The concert was organized by the Muhlenberg Activities Council (MAC.). “The Stolen is an up-and-coming band from New Jersey...They’re really fun, they have the 1975-vibe going on, also crossed with 5 Seconds of Summer, but I highly recommend checking out their music,” said MAC member Maddie Satin ‘17, who was very excited about the concert.

The Stolen is made up of four friends from Old Bridge, New Jersey: Dominick “Dom” Cuce provided lead vocals; Alex Fabio played guitar; Rob Chiarappa sang backup vocals and also played guitar; and Rob’s brother Mike was on drums. They played a series of original songs and some covers of songs from bands such as Kings of Leon, All Time Low, and 1975. Saturday was the first day of their fall tour, and although they admitted that they’d never heard of Muhlenberg College before, they felt very welcome and complimented our beautiful campus. The band cracked jokes with the audience and seemed to have a lot of fun performing. After the show, they sold T-shirts and CDs at the merchandise table in the Light Lounge, took pictures, signed autographs, and chatted with students.

Kris Allen came on at ten o’clock, with a considerably larger turnout than the opening act. He also had some fun with the audience, opening a couple of his songs with the joke, “Welcome to my town... Allentown,” and asking an audience member near the stage to keep him updated on the score of the Razorbacks game. When he found out two girls in the crowd were celebrating their birthdays, he led the room in a chorus of “Happy Birthday.” Kris played a number of original songs from his latest album and had the audience sing along with his cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and his well-known track “Live Like We’re Dying.”

“I saw Kris Allen when he was on American Idol, so I thought I’d come and see him live,” said Leah Chaise ‘17. “[The Stolen] were actually pretty good,” she added, admitting that she hadn’t heard of the band previously.

The Stolen had time for a brief interview after the show, and they talked about how they met and how they became passionate about music. “I moved from New York to New Jersey when I was about three,” Cuce said, “and I moved next to Rob and Mike, and we became friends...As we got older, they started to develop their love of music, and that sort of rubbed off on me, and then I developed a love of music—that’s pretty much the gist of everything.” Their earliest music gigs included school talent shows and neighborhood block parties.

The band admitted that stardom would be nice— Mike Chiarappa in particular said his final goal was to become a “rock star”—but playing music with their friends is the best part of their job. “I’d love someday to be comfortable enough in my life to keep doing what I love, which is playing music,” Cuce said. Rob Chiarappa advised aspiring musicians to “drain their bank accounts” if necessary in order to pursue their dreams. “No matter what you do, whether it’s a band like this or a 9-to-5 job,” Rob Chiarappa added, “you have to love doing it every day and you can’t let anything stop you.”

All in all, music night at Muhlenberg turned out to be a big success. The Stolen band member Alex Fabio left the crowd of students at the end of the night with one very important piece of advice: “Keep rocking.”

Photos courtesy of Sara Gottlieb