11

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Arts & Entertainment EditorJeremy Rodriguezarts@thewhitonline.com

1. “Kick-Ass 3” #6The latest issue in volume three of the wildly successful “Kick-Ass” will finally delve into the origin story of every-one’s favorite pint-sized killing ma-chine, Hit-Girl. We’ll see her training, first blood and, since this is a flash-back issue, the late Big Daddy will also make an appearance. This issue will be extra-sized and hits your local comic book shop on Feb. 12.

Netflix’s award-winning political drama, “House of Cards,” returns on Feb. 14. The show follows Frank Underwood [Kevin Spacey], a Democrat from South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District and House Ma-jority Whip. After losing a position as Secre-tary of State, Underwood takes revenge on those who betrayed him. Due to the success of the show, Netflix also announced on Feb. 4 that “House of Cards” has already been re-newed for Season 3.

3. “House of Cards”

2. “Rayman Legends”A direct sequel to 2011’s “Rayman Origins,” “Legends” was originally announced as a Wii U exclusive planned for the console’s launch window. Ubisoft delayed the game and made it a multi-platform release. On Feb. 18, this stellar platformer will finally make its way to PS4 and Xbox One. This new version sports shorter loading times, updated graphics, and exclusive costumes available for Ray-man and Globox depending which platform gamers choose to play on.

ARTS

The sounds of step filled the Cham-berlain Student Center Pit as Rowan After Hours, the Greek Cultural Or-ganizations Council and the National Pan-Hellenic Council welcomed the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. Club back to Rowan to host the Step & Stroll Showcase.

“We had had the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. Club here before, last year, and they’re re-ally great so we wanted to have them back again this year,” said Rio Napoli, assistant director of Late Night Pro-gramming and Special Events for RAH. “They drew a great crowd, they have a lot of positive energy and, like I said, we wanted to bring them back again this year so I contacted their agent and we also reached out to the GCOC and the NPHC Greek cultural organi-zations to ask them if they’d like to step, stroll or just basically showcase before the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. Club came out and stepped.”

The P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. Club was started in New York City in 1996 when founder Ed “King Leo” Nelson organized 30 oth-er young men and women from Monsi-

gnor Scanlan High School. The group now has 70 members ranging from mid-dle school age to adults. Working with the younger members of the club is also the definition behind the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S.’ name: “Participating in the lives among youth to educate and restore society.”

The group has some major achieve-ments to its name including a perfor-mance at the White House for Presi-dent Bill Clinton, touring with Alicia Keys and Beyonce, and appearing in the movie “The River of Thunderment.” For the Feb. 7 event at Rowan, King Leo brought along members Oscar “O” Ace-vedo, Veronica “Mamasita” Rivera and Ortega “Kayo” Mack.

The Step & Stroll Showcase started off with brief step performances by the Lambda Sigma Upsilon Latino Frater-nity, Inc., followed by both the Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority, Inc. and Chi Upsilon Sigma National Latin Sorority, Inc., who each performed chants before the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. Club took the stage.

“The reason why people step is to diversify,” said senior law and justice

From left, Ed Nelson, Ortega Mack, Oscar Acevedo, and Veronica Rivera of the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. Club perform a step routine. -Staff photo/Okanke-Victor Oden

P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. return to Rowan After HoursPete ImbesiAssistant A&E Editor

See P.L.A.Y.E.R.S., Pg. 12

The Beatles: going strong fifty years laterWe all know the iconic footage of The

Beatles at John F. Kennedy International Airport, flocked by hundreds of scream-ing girls as the band waved on the steps of the plane.

The band arrived in New York greeted by 4,000 teenagers, 200 members of the press and more than 100 police officers on Feb. 7, 1964.

In their first performance on American soil on, Feb. 9, 1964, The Beatles performed in front of a live studio audience free of ad-mission on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” This was one of over 1,000 performances in the group members’ career together, but this one would go down in the record books.

“The only thing that’s different is the hair, as far as I can see — I give them a year,” said Ray Bloch, musical director for “The Ed Sullivan Show” back then.

The Beatles “apparently could not carry a tune across the Atlantic,” wrote a columnist from The Herald Tribune, rat-ing the appearance as “75 percent public-

Erica AveryStaff Writer

From left, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr arrive in America. -Photo courtesy of WikipediaSee Beatles, Pg. 12

12 Thursday, February 13, 2014THE WHIT

major Jose Veloz, a brother of the Lambda Sigma Upsilon. “There is a cultural aspect to stepping. It’s not just going out there to have fun. I mean it is fun, but there is a reason behind stepping.”

King Leo and the rest of the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. kept the crowd laughing throughout the per-formance, balancing their high-energy routines with jokes and skits, including when the group pretended to be a 1970s-in-spired funk band, Sexy Choco-late and the Funky Bunch.

The P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. also in-vited the students in the au-

dience on stage to participate and attempted to teach them a short routine. King Leo had some fun with the students and gave them each affectionate nicknames including dubbing senior math education major Keith Ferrante as “Cinnamon.”

Before the show closed, “King Leo” took an opportunity to thank the crowd for coming out and stressed how important it is to support the performing arts after explaining how he and Kayo (both former gang members) used step as a way to do something positive with their lives.

“You never know what a clap can do for [one’s] self-esteem,” King Leo said.

King Leo was happy to be able to perform at Rowan again.

“Usually we don’t come back to a school right away,” King Leo said. “Usually it’s like three, four years with some schools. So, for them to invite us back the next year was awesome and we appreciate it. Whether it was 10 people, 100 people, [or] 40 people [in the audience], it [doesn’t] matter to us. We’re still going to give a show, we’re still going to give it our all. It was great being back here, it’s like I go here. They’ve got love for us.”

For comments/questions about this story, email arts@thewhiton-

line.com or tweet @thewhitae.

ity, 20 percent haircut and five percent lilting lament.”

But they both were wrong. Over half a century later, the band’s music lives on.

CBS honored the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ legendary performance, a day which CBS hailed in its Grammy Special as “the night that changed America,” in a special broadcast on Sunday. The event was held to commemorate one of the most historic moments in music and televi-sion. It is now commonly known as the night that marked the beginning of the British Invasion.

Though today the masses know The Beatles for over 200 songs and 13 albums, that evening the band only played five songs on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” but that was enough to earn them broadcasting his-tory and to change the lives of countless Americans across the country.

A reported 74 million people, a majority of the country’s television sets, watched the broadcast that day in 1964, a record which still stands as the most viewership a broad-cast in America has ever received.

George Harrison, the band’s lead guitar-ist who died in 2001, spoke about just how profound that moment was many years ago in an interview for The Beatles Anthology.

“I’ve heard that while the show was on, there were no reported crimes, or very few,” Harrison said. “When The Beatles were on ‘Ed Sullivan,’ even the criminals had a rest for 10 minutes.”

The crowd outside the theater stretched over eight blocks and CBS had received more than 50,000 ticket re-quests for about 728 tickets, according to Sunday’s broadcast.

Ed Sullivan himself expressed on air that evening in 1964 his astonishment over the unprecedented mania.

“Now, yesterday and today, our the-ater’s been jammed with newspapermen

and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation, and these veterans agreed with me that this city never has witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves The Beatles,” Sullivan said.

The Ed Sullivan Theater, now the David Letterman Theater, has been part of The Beatles tribute week beginning Feb. 3.

To coincide with the 50th anniver-sary of The Beatles’ first U.S. visit is the release of the new 13-album collection and box set, spanning 1964’s “Meet The Beatles!” to 1970’s “Hey Jude” which was released on Jan. 21 in the U.S. by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol.

Tribute performers included Maroon 5, Stevie Wonder, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, Imagine Dragons, Dave Grohl, John Mayer, Keith Urban and Alicia Keys, among others. Acts covered hits such as “All My Loving,” “In My Life,” “Yesterday,” “Let It Be” and “Here Comes the Sun.”

Performers like Dave Grohl expressed

their adoration for the band during their performance.

“I can honestly say that if it weren’t for The Beatles, I would not be a musician,” Grohl said.

Finally, the show concluded with sur-viving Beatles members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr jamming to hits like “Yel-low Submarine,” “With a Little Help From My Friends,” “Get Back” and “Hey Jude.”

With intermittent segments of David Letterman interviewing Starr and McCart-ney, he spoke about the diversity of the set list for “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“[It] started out with ‘All My Loving,’ ‘Till There Was You,’ ‘She Loves You,’ ‘I Saw Her Standing There,’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ – I mean, my God, that’s a career for a lot of bands,” Letterman said.

And the rest is history.

For comments/questions about this story, email arts@thewhitonline.com or tweet

@thewhitae.

P.L.A.Y.E.R.S.Continued from Pg. 11

BeatlesContinued from Pg. 11

Oscar Acevedo and Ortega Mack of the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S club act on stage as part of the performance. -Staff photo/Okanke-VIctor Oden