Newly graduated students and other members of Gainesville’s musical scene came together Saturday night for a nostalgic and atypical backyard show headlined by Good Neighbours.
Called “Grad Bash,” the show commemorated members of the community moving on to the next step of their lives all while enjoying one of their final evenings in what many Gators know as the town that created their college experience.
The night’s headliner, Good Neighbours, found its viral start with its 2024 song “Home.” Gainesville artists Madwoman and Prizilla opened for the band Saturday night. Jeremiah Ludicrous manned the DJ booth.
Beginning at 8 p.m. on Saturday, viewers crowded the backyard of 28-year-old history senior Stephen Herkov’s home. Prizilla and Madwoman merch tables with string lights overhead lined the venue’s entrance. A crafted stage in the back of the yard sat with keyboards, a drum set and guitars awaiting the upcoming bands.
Seniors arrived at the show in gowns and stoles, some of whom had walked earlier in the day. Others waited for their fleeting moment on the stage of the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in the coming days.
Christian Scaff, a 22-year-old computer science alumnus, graduated from UF on Monday. He said he took the evening as a way to relish his final days in Gainesville.
“As a senior graduating, it's nice to have one last event where you’re like, ‘I’m going to go to something, be comfortable, know some people here, have a good time,’” Scaff said.
Jeremiah Ludicrous opened the show, spinning artists such as Sade and PinkPanthress. The DJ mixed tracks as crowds of people swarmed the stage, excitedly anticipating one final show before summer or their final goodbye from Gainesville.
Madwoman guitarist Chandler McFarland sported a teal guitar as he adjusted and manipulated pedals to ensure the best sound for the band’s time on stage.
Twenty-one-year-old sociology alumna and Prizilla frontwoman Isabella Duncan graduated the same day she opened for Good Neighbours. Her task before the show? Building the stage for the backyard performance.
“I was moving the pallets to make the stage earlier today, just before my ceremony,” Duncan said. “Now I’m here, and it’s all set up. So it was cool to see it transform.”
Prizilla’s set, filled with saxophone, basslines and hypnotic drum grooves, acted as the band’s Gainesville send-off. Its sound bounces with a charming groove, suited for the backyard DIY Gainesville music scene or a metropolis like New York City.
Duncan and McKayla Keels, Prizilla’s background vocalist and bassist, plan to move to New York after graduation to continue creating music together.
“It’s continuing, and it’s moving to the Big Apple,” Duncan said. “That’s actually the first time we’ve actually ever said that to anyone else other than our friends.”
Duncan’s parents, John and Mariela Duncan, watched their daughter’s final performance as a UF student and celebrated her experience of being in a band in college. They said they view it as being just as enriching as the education she gained in Gainesville.
“What’s exciting for us is that university is a place to just nurture something about yourself, to find something about yourself and take it out into the world,” John Duncan said. “People think it's all about the degree, but the music scene here is just as much a part of nurturing something that goes somewhere else.”
The unique nature of college music scenes allows for musicians to flourish in front of audiences and add to the knowledge of what they want to do in the world, John said, describing his daughter’s journey at UF.
Nate “Diggity Dawg” Bonilla-Warford, a Radio DJ for Tampa’s WMNF 88.5 FM radio station, said going to local shows allows him to connect with Florida’s flourishing music groups.
“If I had to pick one band right now from Gainesville that is my favorite, I would have to say Prizilla, which is why I came up tonight,” Bonilla-Warford said.
Preparing to take the crafted stage after Prizilla was Good Neighbours.
Sam Breslin, a senior marketing director at Capitol Records, said a reason why Good Neighbours came to Gainesville was to get the band to places its never seen and expand its fanbase.
“They played a couple of college towns on this run, and I think it’s great to be here on graduation day,” Breslin said. “To be in this setting of a backyard is so unique.”
Good Neighbours closed out the night during its stop in Gainesville on Saturday, playing at Will’s Pub in Orlando the day before.
As the backyard’s crowd reached its peak during the night, the headlining band, composed of Oli Fox, Scott Verill and drummer Duncan Brookfield played songs from its debut EP, including “Home.” As the crowd sang along, purple lights filled the stage. Electronic, pre-recorded sections of the music blended with Fox and Verill’s airy vocals and live instrumentals.
The show concluded around midnight, and the band packed its van for its next tour stop in Auckland, New Zealand, on May 10.
Michael Angee is a second-year journalism major and the Student Government reporter. When he's not at the Gainesville Sun building, he enjoys cooking and listening to music with friends.
