Recap (in crayon): Empires, Warren Franklin, and Hank.

The Illini Union Courtyard Café is famous for its lunchtime acoustic guitarists covering Jack Johnson and distracting students from their coffee. But, Star Course always brings good music to this stage, so I was excited to see Empires, Warren Franklin and the Founding Fathers, and CU’s own Hank last Friday.The show began with Hank reading a note: “Hank, you do to math rock what John Wayne Gacy did to people.” Admittedly, they sure had a “killer” set, with all the tight songs, finger tapping, and effects you’d expect from a great math rock band. Warren Franklin and the Founding Fathers played some fun emo-influenced alternative rock, leading into a performance by Empires that made me both laugh and drop my jaw. I couldn't believe the things lead vocalist Sean Van Vleet was doing; he tried his hardest to be a "rock star," singing to the ladies, touching fans' hands, picking up a monitor and turning it out to the crowd, and playing a tambourine with more intensity than I’ve ever seen in my life. At one point, he posed for a picture with the tambourine in the middle of a song. To amplify his rock-start persona, he was exceptionally inconsiderate of the other four members of Empires, trying to draw all attention away from them. On one occasion Van Vleet threw his tambourine on top of the guitarist's pedal board, forcing him to awkwardly pick it up with his foot. However, the crowd loved all of Van Vleet's antics,as they clapped, sang along, and cheered when he would stand on speakers or bang his tambourine against the drummer’s cymbals.It was goofy.I don’t own a camera so below are crayon drawings I did from memory of the show.