Up-and-Com­ing Band Makes an Ap­pear­ance at Bethel’s Go2BU

MISHAWAKA–– Go2BU is an im­mer­sive week­end for high school ju­niors and se­niors to have a col­lege ex­pe­ri­ence in just three days. Di­rec­tor of Ad­mis­sions, Stephanie Hochstetler, said that this was the third year for Go2BU, and each year is sim­i­lar in sched­ule. 

 “They get to see so much of what Bethel has to of­fer in such a com­pacted time frame. They get the whole overview,” Hochstetler said. 

 Stu­dents were able to do ac­tiv­i­ties that in­volve al­most every as­pect that Bethel has to of­fer. Ac­tiv­i­ties in­cluded arts, classes, sports, the­atre and a free con­cert Fri­day night. 

This year, the up-and-com­ing band, Cochren & Co. was asked to put on a show for Go2BU. The band fea­tured lead singer, Michael Cochren, along with his wife and fel­low band mem­bers play­ing bass, drums, acoustic and elec­tric gui­tar and key­board. The con­cert was free to all stu­dents and Bethel com­mu­nity mem­bers.

Kristy Bride­groom, di­rec­tor of con­fer­ence ser­vices, said col­lec­tively through meet­ings and con­nec­tions and us­ing a book­ing plat­form used pre­vi­ously for other events, stu­dent life was able to con­tact and ask Cochren & Co. to come to Bethel for the event. 

“We thought they would be able to con­nect with cam­pus com­mu­nity,” Bride­groom said.

The lead vo­cal­ist grew up in a small town in south­ern In­di­ana, ac­cord­ing to their of­fi­cial web­site. Ad­di­tion­ally, the band is cur­rently tour­ing with To­by­Mac across the coun­try.

Michael Cochren, lead singer of the band, said that per­form­ing for young peo­ple al­lows for hope. 

“I think they’re fac­ing stuff that we never faced even five years ago when I was in col­lege so I think if the more we can en­cour­age those peo­ple and stu­dents, the more I think they are go­ing to go out into the world bet­ter equipped to han­dle life.”

Bride­groom thought stu­dents could re­late to the lead singer and the band, since Cochren was raised in In­di­ana and grew up in the church.

“This would have been some­one who would’ve been a BU stu­dent at some point,” Bride­groom said. 

Bride­groom said the band had a clas­si­cal sound but also added an old school sound with their own in­ter­est­ing beats, pro­duc­ing every as­pect of the mu­sic, which would draw many stu­dents.