A record 6,000-plus students, faculty, staff and their guests stretched across the grassy amphitheater of the Campus Commons to watch Denver rock band The Fray jam for 90 minutes on a comfortable Friday night in September. The show was a production of Student Affairs and the Student Government Association, which brought Lady Antebellum to campus a year ago.

The backdrop of the Brown-Lupton University Union, with the purple-lighted King Clock Tower and residents of King and Carter residence halls watching curiously from open windows, made for a cozy venue.

The faithful and the fanboys had lined up hours before gates opened at 7:45 p.m., and the five-member group didn’t disappoint. Nearly all piano-driven, The Fray mixed new songs with old hits and was quick to get audience participation from Horned Frog Nation.

On the second song, lead vocalist Isaac Slade, (right) climbed down from the stage and pushed his way into the crowd. While surrounded by smart phones, most of them recording, he belted out the chorus to the Grammy Award-nominated “Over My Head (Cable Car).”

Slade and company shone on “All At Once,” “You Found Me” and “Look After You,” but the front man got the night’s biggest cheers when he hopped up from the piano and demonstrated that he had learned the Horned Frog hand sign.

“Hey, TCU, we wanted you to know we learned something from you.” Slade then donned TCU sunglasses and asked the crowd to sing the school song.

Not knowing whether to sing the “TCU Fight Song” or the alma mater, the crowd gave a garbled version of both.

Earlier in the night, local singer/songwriter Tim Halperin ’10 (right) got the show started with a set of new songs, including “She Gets What She Wants” and “She Sets Me Free” from his new album Rise and Fall.

Halperin confessed that two years prior, as a TCU student, he had covered a The Fray song at a piano in the Union and posted the video on YouTube. Now, he was opening for them at his alma mater.
Related story:
Longer story on the concert

Photo gallery:
To come

Video: