By Jess Goodwin

I thought Fall Fest was going to be a disaster. I saw the initial line-up (then without headliner Wale — pronounced “Wall-ay,” not whale — and including post-emo band Mae) over the summer and felt instantly justified in my assumption that Major Events Coordinator Jeff Levin was an idiot.

But in the end he pulled it off. With a bit of luck and a lot of hard work, little by little everything came together.

“It went really well,” said Levin, a sophomore arts management major. “I’m pretty happy. I did my best, and there was a big turnout. People had fun.”

People did have fun, and in some cases, to their own surprise.

“I had a great time,” said Fritzgerald Polax, sophomore journalism. “Every time I saw Jeff I went up and told him how impressed I was.”

Russ Zambito, creative writing junior, agreed. “I thought Jeff did a great job. At first I was really concerned,” he added. “I honestly thought it was going to be a fiasco.”

Rather, problems were minimal. Though off to a slightly late start (due primarily to a missing cable that had to be fetched from Easton,) things got back on track after the four Purchase acts — Joe Ferry and the Big Ska, Mal Blum, The Legacy Hour, and Moving Mountains — were cut down to 25 minutes each.

Despite playing so early on a Friday afternoon, Purchase’s bands all drew a decent and diverse crowd, from those who cheerfully bounced along to Joe Ferry and Mal Blum (“I loved her cover of ‘Torn,’” said Polax with a smile,) to others who started swinging during hardcore band The Legacy Hour.

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