Parker jazzes up U. during Fling concert

But only approximately 1,500 people attended the show, which was moved indoors because of the threat or rain. Though Stephanie Klupinski went to Friday night's Spring Fling concert not knowing anything about headliner Maceo Parker, she is definitely more familiar now with the talents of the funk legend. Tenor saxophone in hand, Parker put most of the concertgoers into a dancing mood with a blend of jazz, funk and soul that varied from the mellow to the frenetic. "Maceo really blew everyone away," said Klupinski, a College senior. "I'm just upset more people didn't go." Engineering freshman Likang Chin joined most of her fellow concertgoers in praising the 90-minute-long performance of Parker and his back-up performers. "He didn't sing a lot but had good instrumentals," she said. "The sound was awesome." Amid tight security in the Palestra -- where the concert was moved after forecasts of bad weather doomed the outdoor Hill Field venue -- the concert went off relatively incident-free, pleasing organizers from the Social Planning and Events Committee. "Everyone seemed to have a great time," said Allison Rosen, co-chairperson of SPEC's Concerts Committee . "It's hard when you're in a gym, but that's all we had." An official count of the number of tickets sold was unavailable last night, Rosen said. Many people in attendance estimated that around 1,500 people were there, far fewer than the 4,000 tickets concert organizers were hoping to sell for the event. The first 1,000 to enter the event were given wristbands entitling them to watch the concert from the Palestra floor. But while many attendees praised Parker, most complained that the arena's acoustics were poor throughout most of the show. Opening for Parker were the Five Fingers of Funk, punk-ska mainstay Fishbone and the New York-based Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. "If there is one thing that brings all of these bands together, it is that they are all great showmen," said Joel Epstein, the other co-chairperson of SPEC Concerts. "I like seeing bands that are into the act, jumping around [and] sweating." Student reaction to the opening acts could be best described as mixed. The Five Fingers of Funk, a hip-hop and funk ensemble from Portland, Ore., opened a little after 7 p.m. to a small audience. Only a couple of hundred ticketholders were present for their horn-driven set. College freshman Angie Liou described their performance as "disappointing." "They were trying real bad to give a good show," she said. "There were so few people at the beginning, [and they] weren't into it yet." Klupinski, however, said she thought the Fingers' performance was "a lot more intimate," though she conceded that most people talked or found their seats instead of dancing along. The arrival of Fishbone at 7:45 p.m., however, saw the lights dimmer, the crowd larger, the bass deeper and the applause louder. With a boisterous mix of metal, punk, funk and ska, they entertained the crowd with driving beats and wild stage antics. Within the first 10 minutes, lead vocalist Angelo Moore stripped to his pants and suspenders and -- with a noticeable lack of underwear -- dove off the stage into the waiting arms of the tightly-packed crowd below. About a dozen audience members body-surfed in Moore's fashion, resulting in a few minor injuries. Liou said Fishbone "definitely did a much better job" than the Fingers. She credited a spoken-word poem written by the group with grabbing the audience's attention from the beginning. After Moore mistakenly introduced Parker as the next act, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion took its place on the stage. Spencer, a founding member of the 1980s band Pussy Galore, loudly explained his guitar-driven hard-edged musical sound to the audience near the end of his set. "The blues is number one," he said. "But I don't play no blues. I play rock 'n roll." Klupinski, who said she came to see Spencer for the third time, said she was unimpressed with the performance. "I thought that this was the weakest time I've seen them," she said, adding that the acoustics in the arena made listening difficult. Shortly before 10:30 p.m., Parker and his posse took the stage. Though one of his band members said at one point, "Penn State, are you ready to party?" the performance was otherwise flawless. Parker -- who made his name playing with James Brown and George Clinton -- was joined on stage by six back-up musicians, as well as his son Corey, who lent a hip-hop air to the performance. Parker, known for his tenor sax playing, showed his versatility by singing, dancing, scatting and, on one number, performing a jazzy piece -- on the flute. "He's such a great live performer," Rosen said. "It just promotes awareness of something that people otherwise wouldn't have seen." As a result of the security measures in place, there was only minor use of alcohol and drugs on the Palestra floor. One student who Rosen said was "a little too drunk" from before the show was taken away by stretcher, though she and Epstein emphasized that there were no major medical incidents. The annual concert has traditionally been held outdoors, but Thursday morning organizers decided, for the second straight year, to hold it indoors. Last year's inclement conditions -- including early-morning snowfall -- pushed the concert, then headlined by A Tribe Called Quest, into the confines of Irvine Auditorium. The concert had to be held in the Palestra this year because of Irvine's closing for renovations as part of the Perelman Quadrangle project. The Fling concert was last held in the Palestra in 1994, when Cypress Hill headlined. Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer Andrew McLaughlin contributed to this article.