The tickets read “Ben Folds, Featuring: Undeclared.” The concert was set to begin at 9 p.m. Monday, March 3 in the Center for Faith and Life. Those who arrived on time, however, were greeted by the guitar of Eef Barzelay and not the a cappella of Undeclared.

Undeclared went on stage at 8:45 p.m., 15 minutes after the doors had opened, and performed two songs without amplification. Concertgoers expecting a full set were left scratching their heads.

Folds had originally planned a college a cappella tour, which would have included student groups such as Undeclared, but plans for that tour eventually fell through.

“Ben Folds’ spring tour wasn’t set in stone, and originally he was going to tour by himself and not with a band,” said SAC Concerts Co-chair Josh Bruflodt (‘08). “Then, as things progressed, there were decisions by his agency to have a band as well, and then along with that, they packaged together an opening act, which was Eef.

“They actually didn’t have a tour manager until probably two weeks before our show.”

It was the absence of a tour manager from the time the contract was signed in December until mid-February that caused a problem.

“[The new tour manager] had never even heard of [Undeclared],” said Allie Fjelstad (‘08), SAC Concerts co-chair. “He didn’t know that they were going to be here.”

Fjelstad and Bruflodt said they did not know Folds was bringing an opening act until about two weeks before the show.

They decided against telling Undeclared.

“We opted not to discuss it because we didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Bruflodt.

Undeclared believed they were under contract to open for Folds.

“There was a contract with our name on it,” said Tyler Wiese (‘08), an Undeclared member. “We never saw it, but there was a contract that was signed by Ben Folds or somebody representing Ben Folds that had us on it as the opener.

“One of the stipulations of the contract, talking to Allie and Josh, is that the performer can basically do whatever he wants and not break the contract.”

Undeclared member Zach Booz (‘08) said the group was under the impression they would receive a 35 to 40 minute set.

“At the time I thought it was a guarantee,” said Booz. “I’ve been told a number of times I don’t understand how the business works, but that’s what it seemed like.”

Their planned 35 minute set was reduced to 10.

“We were given 10 minutes, so we thought that we had three songs that were anywhere between 10 and 12 minutes,” said Booz. “We thought that if we started the third song, they probably wouldn’t kick us off, that we would be alright, but after the second song Allie gave us the ax.”

Bruflodt, however, noted the time was not guaranteed.

“A lot of what Undeclared had heard over the last couple of weeks prior to the show was all mostly rumor-based,” said Bruflodt. “It was all confidential. We didn’t have any information. We didn’t give any information to anybody.

“It was at the stage where we couldn’t really give out any information about the show, especially things about the timeline because none of it was set in stone. In no way did we try to lead on Undeclared or lead on the campus to think that they were going to get a full set or 45 minutes. We never said anything about that.”

Trish Neubauer, coordinator of Student Activities and the Union, directed questions to Fjelstad and Bruflodt but did note the nature of the business.

“The headliner dictates and runs the show, not the promoter,” said Neubauer.

SAC Concerts, the promoter of the concert, had to scramble to get Undeclared any stage time at all.

“We pulled as hard as we could for Undeclared,” said Bruflodt. “We did all that we could do.”

A meeting the day of the performance determined Undeclared’s fate.

“[The tour manager] told me explicitly that out of the goodness of his heart he was allowing us to still sing because, as far as he was concerned, the show’s most important components were Eef and Ben,” said Booz. “From his standpoint that makes sense, so he sort of made the executive decision that he didn’t want to mess with their sound system, and as far as he was concerned, the only two options we had were to sing with the in-house system or to sing unmic’ed.”

While the CFL’s sound system would not have offered the same sound as the professional system brought in for the show, Booz also took exception with the absence of help from the CFL technicians.

“It’s just a reoccurring thing,” said Booz. “Anytime anybody wants to perform in the CFL, it’s always more of a headache. You’d think getting the opportunity to perform in a space like that would be a real awesome thing, but it becomes more of a headache than anything else because for whatever reason there aren’t enough mics.

“It’s the CFL and the most they could offer us was three wireless mics and we’re a 10 member group, so that wasn’t going to do us any good.”

Jake Bouma (‘07), a former member of Undeclared, agreed to perform vocal percussion with the group for the Ben Folds performance. Bouma drove 215 miles, expecting to sing more than two songs.

“I just think that it’s unfortunate that we weren’t more in the know and it’s unfortunate that Ben Folds and his tour manager and all of them kind of used their weight to get their way and push us out of the picture,” said Bouma. “I’m not going to bad-mouth SAC because they were the ones who had us opening for him in the first place and they were just struggling to even keep us on the ticket, literally and figuratively.”

Booz agreed and defended Bruflodt and Fjelstad.

“In Josh and Allie’s defense, I truly believe that they did everything they could for us, as a student group and as peers,” said Booz. “I guess at the same time what was most disappointing to me was how much information they withheld from us and the students because in the end, I could be way off here, but in the end it’s student money and it’s our campus.”

Wiese felt the entire evening was bittersweet.

“I thought it was a good show,” said Wiese. “It was hard for me personally, and I think it was hard for the members of Undeclared to look at Eef’s performance from an objective manner. He gave me a headache, to be honest. I think part of that is just kind of being envious of what he had and what we maybe were supposed to have at one point but didn’t end up with, so that was tough.”