Social Activities Council Coffee House concert brings L.A. artist to Keene, N.H. 

Kazoos, a ukulele and a song about pi were some of what musician Alfa shared with Keene State College students last Saturday in the Night Owl Cafe.  

Alfa Garcia, known by her stage name Alfa, performed at the Social Activities Council’s Annual Coffee House event.  She flew in from Los Angeles, California, just the day before. It was Alfa’s second time visiting New Hampshire and her first time in Keene.

She said she started doing shows at other higher education schools while she attended college and refers to her music as folk-pop.  She plays the piano, guitar, violin and kazoo.

Alfa sold her CDs at the show and SAC provided food and drinks for students who attended the performance.

Alfa played a mixture of songs she wrote as well as acoustic covers of popular songs.

Bree Kraus / Equinox Staff:
Alfa performs at the Social Activities Council’s Annual Coffee House event on March 29, 2014 in the Night Owl Cafe. Inset: The Social Activities Council poses with Alfa and other Coffee House performers.

She played an acoustic version of Lorde’s chart topping song Royals, stating, “I don’t know if you know this next song or not, it’s a little esoteric.”

She also combined different songs together like Alex Clare’s Too Close, Brittany Spears’ Toxic and Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River.

Before she played her own songs, she gave some background as to why she wrote them.  Many of her tracks were about life experiences, like watching her friends get married and a song about the man she dated as a freshman in college. She promoted her most recent album release, World Go Blue.

She encouraged audience participation with singing along and by passing out kazoos.

She had audience members play kazoo along with her for her song titled Blue. She wrote Blue about her sister’s “love drama.”

Alfa seemed to win over audience member and first-time listener Mackenzie Correll, a freshman and dance major.  “She’s really talented.  I wasn’t expecting her to be so talented,” Correll said.

Erica LaFond, a freshman and elementary education major, agreed with her sentiment, “I thought she was really good.”  Correll and LaFond said they liked how Alfa played the ukulele, “because it’s different,” Correll said.

“It makes me want to go to Hawaii,” LaFond said.

Alfa  said she likes playing at colleges because, “it really is a different art, versus playing at a venue, which I love to do — but it’s like two different things.

“Something about playing at colleges — it’s a lot more about interacting, getting your audience sort of involved in the music.  It’s not just about being passive music in the background,” Alfa said.

Hannah Sundell can be contacted at hsundell@keene-equinox.com