Band encourages dancers to continue

Paul Takahashi/The Daily Northwestern

Hillside Manner, winner of Dance Marathon's Battle of the Bands, energized the audience with its set.

"We knew that the dancers were going to be at their worst, most tired stage of the 30 hours," McCormick senior Andrew Edelson said, bass player of Hillside Manner. "We wanted to play some upbeat songs to pick them up."

Immediately after the set, fellow bass player Storm Liebling, Weinberg senior went back to dancing.

"I'm ready to dance for another 30 hours," the third-year dancer said.

Liebling said the band fed off the energy of the audience of dancers while also energizing the dancers.

Lead singer Nathan Tenenbaum, Weinberg '07, said the band has many connections to Dance Marathon.

"We all wanted to be part of it," Tenenbaum said. "I was on the exec board last year and our drummer's (Weinberg senior David Hymen) on the exec board this year, and we've all fundraised a lot for it.  We all want to be involved in any way we can. We all love to play music, so that was kind of a perfect marriage."

The band has been in existence for the past three or four years, with a couple of faces changing over the years.

"We kind of just got together to play these fun gigs, at Battles of the Band of Dance Marathon," Tenenbaum said. "We don't take ourselves too seriously."

Edelson interrupted his comment saying, "We could theoretically take ourselves seriously. There's nothing wrong with taking ourselves seriously."

"Except we're a bunch of goofballs. We probably can't take ourselves seriously," Tenenbaum said.

Lauren Pond/The Daily Northwestern

The only non-Northwestern student or alumnus in the band is Nathan Beck – playing "random different instruments," such as piano and harmonica – who said he enjoyed helping Dance Marathon.

"You can never have too many Nathans in the band," Tenenbaum said. "We have twins in the band (Weinberg seniors Storm and Dustin Liebling). We thought it'd be best to have two guys with the same name in the band."

Members of the band offered some words of encouragement for the dancers who have less than eight hours left until the end of the marathon.

Beck: "You're more than half way done."

Edelson: "Keep on trucking."

Alice Truong/The Daily Northwestern