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As hundreds of University of Wisconsin-Madison students walked into the Orpheum Theatre Thursday night, many were ready for a sold-out performance by indie rockers Mt. Joy. They may have been surprised by the mental wellness experience that accompanied the music.
Matt Quinn, Mt. Joy’s front man and lead vocalist, told the student audience at the Orpheum Theatre to appreciate “how incredibly lucky we are to be a part of this absolute miracle.”
“It’s not just a concert,” said Harris Schwartzberg, founder of Two Bridge and co-founder of Future Friends, an event series held on college campuses that, per its website, “combines live music, wellness activations, and campus resources to support student mental wellness.”
“What we’re really trying to do is build a movement,” Schwartzberg said.
Ahead of the Mt. Joy show, a foggy haze filled the theater as the students filed into their rows. A red Future Friends t-shirt draped over the back of each chair. By the time Mt. Joy took the stage, the crowd was a sea of red.
“Music has always been the place that I’ve run to,” said Mt. Joy frontman Matt Quinn in between songs. “I believe that music has a special magical power to put you back into the present.”
Mt. Joy’s performance on Oct. 1 was part of Future Friends, a campus-centric mental health nonprofit.
Two Bridge, a healthcare nonprofit, hosted a series of mental wellness events in Madison as a part of their Future Friends Campus Series. This involved phone-free experiences — a trivia night, a Noah Kahan documentary, a meditation class — and a student-exclusive concert by Mt. Joy.
Future Friends returned to UW-Madison for its second year this fall, after an inaugural event series with a special performance from pop artist Alex Warren in 2025. All proceeds from the concert directly benefitted local mental health organizations.
Mt. Joy is a five-piece indie rock band founded in Philadelphia. Students at the Orpheum Theatre sang along to fan favorites like “Silver Lining” and “Jenny Jenkins.”
This year’s mental wellness programming once again focused on addressing the loneliness epidemic across today’s youth.
“Music is the great unifier,” said Schwartzberg. “If you have the right artist, and the artist is authentic about the mission and the message, we can all be in the same room and start a conversation.”
Put your phones away
The Orpheum Theatre hosted Mt. Joy, part of a student mental health campaign called Future Friends.
To kick off the conversation Thursday night, mental health activist Kevin Hines took the stage, sharing his personal journey with suicide and the life-saving importance of reaching out to others and asking the simple question, “Are you OK?”
Following Hines’ moving talk, Mt. Joy took the stage, bringing the crowd to their feet as students sang along to fan favorites like “Silver Lining” and “Jenny Jenkins.”
Kevin Hines is a speaker known for his work around suicide prevention. He spoke ahead of the Mt. Joy concert at the Orpheum Theatre on Oct. 1.
The band maintained a high-energy performance through a number of covers as well, ranging from “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
Other than a few students who just couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the performance, the concert generally remained phone-free. Upon entry, students were given a black velvet drawstring pouch to place their phone into, encouraging everyone to put their phones away during the show and truly engage with the music and their peers.
“It made me feel way more in the moment,” says Sophia Large, a freshman attending the concert. “I was less stressed about trying to capture the moment, and I was just ‘in it,’ dancing the entire time.”
The event series at UW-Madison also included financial literacy trivia, mindful movement and meditation, a phone-free social hour and a screening of the unreleased docuseries, “Common Denominator.”
UW-Madison students dressed in red shirts provided by Future Friends, a mental health nonprofit, on Oct. 1 at the Orpheum Theatre.
The docuseries episode, featuring Noah Kahan’s raw accounts of how mental health plays a role in his music and personal life, is only available for viewing at these screening events. The unreleased aspect of “Common Denominator” encouraged students to watch the emotional episode in the presence of their peers.
“It’s something you kind of forget day-to-day when you are struggling with your own problems,” says Justina Rhee, a senior at UW-Madison who attended the screening. “It was a good reminder that other people might be going through issues that are similar to yours.”
During the concert, Mt. Joy’s Quinn spoke to this same idea of standing arm-to-arm with people who might also be battling with any number of things on the inside but nonetheless made it there, to a place where they can let loose and connect to the music. Quinn reminded the audience to take care of each other, leaving students with a message about the power of music to bring people together.
“You realize how incredibly lucky we are to be a part of this absolute miracle,” said Quinn. “To have everything lining up perfectly to be able to be at something like this tonight, sharing love and space with people who are also on that same very unique and crazy journey with you.”
“Whatever you’re going through, this is a beautiful place to go through it.”
Source: captimes.com
