The Fling Concert sure has come a long way since my freshman year, when about 28 slack-jawed Sonic Youth fans huddled around a makeshift stage at Wynn Commons to see their favorite band put on a memorable and really tight performance.

Friday’s show was in many ways the inverse of 2005 — thousands of students stood on Franklin Field’s bleachers, happily grooving to mainstream-approved music of no real substance. But if the performances were generally underwhelming, the crowd’s enthusiasm was truly awe-inspiring. In my four years here I’ve never seen the student body come together with that kind of energy.

Some notes:

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Being Ivy League and elitist an’ all, we have to stand out from our Ivy sister schools. On the outside, we too have old-fashioned buildings, a rather stuffy disposition (in comparison with others such as your stereotypical state school) and, well, we can come across as rather intimidating. The same can be said for Harvard, Yale, even those Ivy League idiots in New Jersey.

So what can we do to set ourselves apart?

Invite our prospective freshmen down at exactly the same time as this university descends into a weekend-long drinking binge. With bouncy castles (moon bounces in American).

It’s the ideal way to bridge that gap between college-style adulthood and those last vestiges of childhood. It also underlines that unlike our sister Ivy universities, we can work hard and have a lot of fun (by the way — read this bollocks article in the Daily Princetonian — it’s about working and playing hard at Princeton. A quick perusal shows this guy has no idea. I especially like the bit about DJ Bob.)

Dear freshmen, we at the University of Pennsylvania have the unique ability to get dangerously wasted and then release our remarkably destructive inner children.

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A record number of people applied for FlingSafe this year, forcing SPEC to close the application window early and turn away even seniors. What is this, the wine tasting preceptorial?

Anyway, I got in and earned my free ticket to the very same concert that I earlier expressed no interest in. Does this make me a hypocrite? I don’t think so. Seeing an artist whose best work — which itself was overrated — is behind him for free is different than paying $25.

Our otherwise tedious FlingSafe orientation did have a few key facts that everyone should know. Read this stuff — it’ll make your Fling safer and my job easier so that I won’t have to be sober on duty worry about all my fellow students.

• Stay away from parties with jungle juice. A favorite among frat brothers, JJ is incredibly potent and easy to spike with date rape drugs. For those reasons, RAs and House Deans will be breaking up parties without warning if they contain the red stuff. As FlingSafers, we’re supposed to report any sightings of jungle juice immediately so the real authorities can swoop in.

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A few days ago, when I returned from the week-that-feels-like-24-hours known as Spring Break, I expected to be welcomed back with kindness by this university. After all, temperatures are rising, fewer Philadelphians are being murdered and this city is the political place to be right now — so my RA and GA should at very least be in a good mood, right?

Wrong. For them, this week starts the inevitable month-long countdown to Spring Fling, when students tend to drink too much in the midst of “rocking out” to acts like Ludacris and Gym Class Heroes. (I never thought I’d say this, but why did Limp Bizkit have to be a joke?)

So instead of a warm welcome after break, I was greeted almost immediately by a light blue, caps-lock-friendly flier with the following header:

Riepe College House PENALTIES FOR ALCOHOL VIOLATIONS

The sheet goes on to list various punishments for drinking, from “community service” (’cause frequent boozers are great with kids) to “4 hours of alcohol education” (bartending class?!) to the incredibly vague “police action.” Needless to say, I was scared.
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It’s been 7 years since Ludacris Rolled out. 7 years since we first asked, “What you got in that bag?”

It’s been even longer — 8 years — since ‘Cris showed us his Southern Hospitality. I don’t even remember how to drop ‘bows on ‘em.

So why make Ludacris the headlining act for Penn’s 2008 Spring Fling? I think it’s because SPEC hates music and the student body. SPEC also hates intimate venues with tight acoustics (ie, Wynn Commons). That’s why this year’s concert will be held at Franklin Field, where it will surely carry all the excitement of a Penn football game.

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