Australian Pop-Rock Is Unexpected Surprise at EFF

Story by Broadside Correspondent Dylan Hares. Photo by Molly Maddra.

A relatively unknown musician by the name of Ry Cummings was the featured artist at last Friday’s Every Freakin’ Friday event. Cummings, who hails from Australia, combines catchy pop-rock music with his charming personality. Though he does have a Web site or MySpace for his unfamiliar fans to learn more about him and his music, Cummings and his band toured with Maroon 5 in recent years, which added to their growing fanbase.

Cummings and his band-mate Adam have been touring universities for the better part of the year now and Cummings said the only thing keeping him going was the stage and the energy he gets from the audience.

On Friday, Cummings put on a very professional-sounding and well put-together show. He played a 75-minute acoustic set that really took his audience by surprise. The pre-show consensus seemed to be that the show was going to be sub-par with the only positive note of the night being the free pizza.

Cummings did, in fact, play what turned out to be your standard-issue acoustic set featuring your run-of-the-mill acoustic songs that mostly sounded like the same song but with different lyrics and of course, a few musical tweaks here and there on facets like tempo, key and tone.

And the lyrics from what I could understand weren’t particularly profound, but despite that fact, he is saying what we all have felt; most of the songs like “When it Rains” (written with Jesse Carmichael of Maroon 5) and “Some Kind of Love” had lyrics that reminded me of your rank-and-file heartbreak song.

Despite these things, Cummings makes it work. His entire set was very “chilled-out” and not only as “chilled-out” as I would expect an acoustic set at a local club to sound like. His songs like “Tear Me Apart” and “Coming Down” are very fun and songs very fitting for a party atmosphere. Ballads like “Because of You” and “Goodbye Right Now” are good, emotional tracks you might find on a Starbucks mix. They really showcased Cummings’ smooth vocals.

His big voice which he used well in his masterful cover of the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah.” Most people know this song from Jeff Buckley’s cover of it (who Cummings attributed influence from) and from its use on many movies and TV shows like The O.C., Scrubs and House, M.D.

In fact, the cover was so good I felt like I should be going through something sad or emotional at that very moment just to make listening to it an appropriate thing. Freshman Garrett Segerson said he “really wasn’t expecting much” but was pleasantly surprised at how new and current the sound was. General opinion by the end of the show was that Cummings is an artist to look out for.

Again, it wasn’t a set of existential acoustic masterpieces but it was a fun set of acoustic alternative pieces that I think most college kids can really appreciate. Cummings sounds like Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake with songs reminiscent of John Mayer. He’s an artist a lot of college students can relate to and listen to.

If you want to hold a beach party, a house party, a small social get together, or just want to chill out and relax, put in Ry Cummings’ cd and you’ll feel right as rain.