Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect a legal name change.
For the students who may have done a double take and wondered if they just saw Jason Mraz, they were probably right. Mraz has been on campus since Sunday morning to rehearse in John R. Emens Auditorium.
“If you are out and about on campus or even around town and think you see Jason Mraz, then you probably did,” Kristi Chambers, Emens marketing assistant, said.
She said it’s unusual for performers to show up so early before a show.
“A Rare Acoustic Evening with Jason Mraz” starts at 7:30 tonight at Emens with an opening act, Raining Jane.
Chambers said Mraz was listed as one of the events that could be booked through the promoter agency the auditorium uses. The list was multiple pages long and featured a mix of popular artists, including “Thrift Shop” artist Macklemore. However, the date Mraz was available lined up with Emens’ schedule.
“We also chose him because we had him here … in 2003 and the show didn’t really go that good because he was just starting out,” Chambers said. “Now that Jason Mraz is a lot larger, we wanted to have him back because we did have him here at the start, and it’s obviously an event we could do well on.”
Students, willing to sacrifice comfortability and their immune systems to see Mraz tonight, lined the campus the night before tickets went on sale in September.
Justin Jovceski, a sophomore Japanese major, camped out. He said while he did get a cold from being outside all night, the experience will be worth it.
“I get to sit near the front [of Emens] and breathe more of Jason’s air,” Jovceski said jokingly. “I needed to see Jason as close as I could and now, I can do that. It was totally worth camping out.”
Mraz, who the Daily News was unable to contact, spent 22 months promoting and touring for his album “We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.” In a press release about tonight’s event, he referred to the tour as “a whirlwind.”
“I got turned on to the power of the voice and the power of the melody, and it created this desire in me to do it again immediately,” Mraz said in the press release. “Being able to inspire people and take a very simple message global gave me a preview of what that can do.”
Jovceski was surprised to see that Mraz was coming to campus. He described Mraz’s music as “relatable, happy and different.”
“Most songs on the radio today are a combination of sad ballads and rap songs that give you too much of an earful,” he said. “Jason is different because he delivers something that makes you smile. His music is what I would like to call ‘the guy next door’s jukebox hits,’ meaning everything he makes is down to earth.”
Joining Mraz at Emens is Raining Jane, a rock and folk band from Los Angeles. This isn’t the first time the women have worked with him. In 2007, they started writing music together. They wrote “A Beautiful Mess,” which appeared on Mraz’s “We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things” album in 2008.
Becky Gebhardt, bassist and guitarist for Raining Jane, said while Raining Jane has written songs with Mraz for a long time, they haven’t done much with him live yet.
“It’s incredibly exciting to be taking our music out there and doing a live show and sharing it with the world,” she said. “Jason is such an incredible performer, so it’s so much fun to be on the stage and performing together.”
Gebhardt said the audience at Emens tonight will be some of the first people to experience the new project that Raining Jane and Mraz have worked on. She said that just makes the experience and event more different for both fans and performers.
Around 600 tickets were still available Monday night. Tickets cost $10 to $15 for students and $25 to $30 for the public. Contact the Emens Box Office by phone or online to purchase tickets.
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