Mercer Village became a lyrical landscape for this year’s Cubstock concert. QuadWorks and the Mercer Music and Lyrics Club pulled out all the stops to showcase the event from 6-8 p.m. on Oct. 7.
Cubstock is an annual live concert planned by QuadWorks that showcases Mercer musicians performing original and covered music in front of an audience for free. The event featured around a dozen performers, along with open mic acts, as well as free wings from Francar’s Buffalo Wings for the audience.
The event was planned by the Mercer Live committee of QuadWorks. They are the committee that plans and organizes live events such as Bearstock and Mercer’s Got Talent. Bailey Byrdsong ‘25, a Spanish major, is a second-year member of the Mercer Live committee and helped plan the event for the first time.
“Planning Cubstock was very exciting because I was able to meet some really talented students and alumni,” Byrdsong said. “My favorite part was the whole show! The audience was so engaged and I loved how so many people performed during the open mic portion of the show.”
Many of the performers were also happy to perform at the event as well. Jay Hart, an MSBA graduate student, YouTuber and aspiring artist, performed live for the second time ever at the event and was glad he could perform his music.
“I loved it,” Hart said. “It was nerve-racking at first because I recently tore my Achilles so I had to wear a boot on stage and I couldn’t move as I wanted. However, I was able to successfully perform two songs!”
Hart’s favorite part was performing “Orange and Black” with Corbin “Skinny Giant” Jones '23 and Salam “Righteous Rhymez” Agbaje '23. He was especially glad to see the crowd really engaged with his music.
“I managed to get two crowd responses,” Hart said. “And even some cheering after my performance. To someone just now starting out, this means a lot because, as artists, we are very sensitive to our music.”
He would like viewers to stream the Mercer Album featuring the Mercer Music and Lyrics Club on all music platforms and listen to his solo music on his YouTube Channel.
Many new students also looked forward to performing at the event. Titus Sexton ‘26, a mechanical engineering major, highlights his experience being able to perform and share his story with the songs and poems he wrote.
“Performing at Cubstock felt amazing,” Sexton said. “I was nervous, yet I felt free for the first time in I don’t know how long. Especially since I never performed in front of people before. I’ve given public speeches in my senior year of high school, but this was a different story.”
Sexton performed a song he wrote in 15 minutes before performing it live at the open mic. He wanted to share something that he felt the need to share and was mostly trying to find his voice at the event. He also performed a spoken word song he had written a couple of months ago.
Sexton plans to move forward but doesn’t have anything released at the moment since he is just starting. He does have a few projects in the works to be released.
Byrdsong also said she looks forward to attending Bearstock during the spring semester. Bearstock is an annual concert thrown by QuadWorks for all students featuring local or international performers.
