Collegiate Times

Matisyahu and his band played new songs at the show, many of which came off of its newly released EP, "Shattered." The tone of the band was different from its past reggae-based sound. Instead, the band's sound at Burruss was harder. Matisyahu opted to step out of the spotlight at times in order to let many of his band mates have a few minutes of solo.

Although the band had many energetic songs, it occasionally let the beat drop to a more mellow pace. In these moments, Matisyahu sometimes stood at the front of the stage, eyes closed in a meditative gesture, swaying back and forth as if he was listening intently to some bodiless voice whispering the lyrics into his ear.

"Perfect," David Clark, a psychology major from Radford, said about Matisyahu's performance. "There couldn't be a better way. The way he beatboxes, the way he just closes his eyes and just gets into his own -- it's pretty amazing."

Matisyahu's beatboxing skills proved to be another crowd pleaser during the show. Taking his voice and turning it into a multi-instrumental machine, he beatboxed and jammed with his band twice during the show for extended periods of time. At one point, in between the sounds put forth by Matisyahu (which included whooshing and robot sounds), the guitarist began to sample the hook from Sir-Mix-A-Lot's "Jump On It."

Another eventful moment in the show occurred when the bassist experienced some problems with his instrument, just as the band was breaking open the beginning riffs of "Youth." On the spot, Matisyahu redirected the music and started another bout of beatboxing. This would be the first of two times the riff would be heard, but the song was not played out in its entirety that night.

"He played the intro," said Arianna Appleton, a sophomore at Tech who was thrown off by Matisyahu's teasing. "And I'd get all excited and then he'd be like 'rewind' and play some other stuff."

Although not all the fans got exactly what they wanted, for fans like Collado, the chance to see SOJA and Matisyahu was well worth any price. This may include the 8 a.m. exam she plans to be studying for up until she takes it.

"It was definitely worth having to stay up all night to study for my 8 a.m. afterward," Collado said after Matisyahu's set ended just before 10:30 p.m.

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