Author’s note: Our partners at The Assembly published a well-reported, nuanced, and intelligent story about the questions that remain in the aftermath of the $500,000 event. The following is not that story.
If I learned only one thing in my recent college years, it’s that the recipe for a good frat party is deceptively simple: take a group of sweaty 20-something-year-olds, pump them full of beer, and drop them in a field with loud music. (Rinse and repeat until they graduate and are forced to grapple with the gray monotony of everyday adult life as their youth slips away).
The organizers of Flagstock, the $500,000 GoFundMe-powered Labor Day frat party in Chapel Hill, tried to improve that tried-and-true recipe by layering spectacle upon spectacle, including a star-studded performance lineup, a six-plane flyover, and a squad of Hooters girls so enthusiastic that you’d think they were paid to be there.
Sure, the party was entertaining. The music was great, and the message—love for red, white, and blue with explicitly Republican shoutouts—came across loud and clear.
But it wasn’t “frat party” fun as much as “your uncle bought you and your friends some beer and also invited his friends and don’t worry he got a permit from the county and hired security people so you can’t use your fake ID because Alcohol Law Enforcement is here and if you do anything dumb there are a dozen journalists with cameras and if you even go to the party then people on campus will be mad and you’ll be hungover for class tomorrow and most of the beer actually isn’t free” fun.
As students stepped off of half-full coach buses at the American Legion Post No. 6 on Monday evening, it became clear that the party wouldn’t draw “between 2,500 and 3,000” as the organizers, conservative operatives John Noonan and Susan Ralston, had promised on a press Zoom call earlier that week. (Official estimates are not yet available but we in the press pavilion generously estimated between 300 and 500 attendees.)
Despite free wings and beer, hundreds of red solo cups and ping pong balls, and a North Carolina-shaped ice luge, even the VIP tent (reserved for the fraternities that actually had members at the flagpole in April) stood mostly empty.
“Some people are gonna be a little disappointed when they get here, for sure,” said Matthew Broderick, a UNC student, when he stopped by the media pavilion before showtime. “I think everybody was picturing an off-campus venue where maybe underaged kids can have a drink,” Broderick said, adding that he is of legal age and still expected to have a good time.
When I asked Broderick if organizers could have done more to appeal to the college masses, he suggested that “maybe they could have gotten someone bigger” to perform. Another student said that Post Malone would’ve been the ideal headliner.
Though there were indeed few diehard fans for the dad-rock genre performers, the crowd seemed to have a good time, oohing and aahing as John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting) opened with a beautiful rendition of “100 Years” while six planes circled overhead.
But they also stood around, somewhat awkwardly, while Ondrasik railed against “the faculty that indoctrinates our kids with hatred and radicalism” and the “administrators and presidents of the universities across our nation that enable, encourage, and sometimes support the mobs running amok.”
Ondrasik, perhaps sensing that he was losing the crowd, soon circled back to more core Flagstock elements like, “You do not have to be Jewish to condemn Hamas, you just have to be human,” and “America is still the greatest hope for freedom, liberty and all that is good in the world.”
That message resonated with the crowd members, many of whom were excited for the opportunity to celebrate America away from a campus environment that, they feel, has bent too often to the liberal establishments of academia and media. One student I spoke to was a member of a Jewish fraternity that was at the flagpole in April; another showed up mostly because his roommate wanted to go.
“This is really just a time for people to come out here and be Americans together. I’ve got this [Make America Great Again] hat on but I associate it with Americanism and so that’s why I’m out here,” said student Preston Hill.
A later performer, Aaron Lewis, noted that his music wasn’t exactly the right fit.
“Don’t fall asleep on me, okay?” Lewis told the crowd. “I’m kidding,” he said, before eventually meandering into a version of “Let’s Go Fishing” in which he ad-libbed “fuck Joe Biden,” to the crowd’s approval.
The performers most in touch with the crowd were the duo Big & Rich, featuring rapper Cowboy Troy, who revived the vibes with a 25-minute genre-hopping medley of “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,” that had the trio gleefully playing off each other and paying tribute to some modern pop-country hits while female dancers in pink crop-tops and shorts—purchased, perhaps, from the same costume supplier as Hooters—bounced happily in the background.
After Lee Greenwood delivered “God Bless the USA” in a firework-filled finale, the media corps was gently asked to head home before the afterparty started. As my Prius scrabbled for a grip in the grass-turned-dirt of the parking area, the DJ duo Twinsick took the stage and the first notes of frat classic “Doses and Mimosas” echoed through the North Carolina night.
It occurred to me that maybe the khaki-short clad crowd would be able to let loose once the sun was down and the cameras were gone. Maybe the numerous “USA” chants were indicative of an American ethos that I simply failed to grasp. Maybe Flagstock really was, as producer Marc Oswald promised beforehand, a “cultural statement of the times” like Woodstock, and I’m just an out-of-touch reporter for an urban leftie rag that only Duke professors and Durham city council members read.
But, more likely, Flagstock’s organizers forgot that sometimes, less is more.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].
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