Indie-pop group swings by Eastern

A quiet, foggy Friday night in October isn’t normally spent in a gymnasium listening to indie-pop music.

And yet, on Oct. 5 at 8 p.m., as many as 30 people were sitting in the main gym musing over the musical quality of Daniel Ellsworth, the opening act, and Horse In The Sea, the main act for the night.

Led by Joel Janis, founder and songwriter, Horse In The Sea is a band that began as a vision. As it claims on their MySpace page, Horse In The Sea “is the ancient story of a man at war with himself. With squinted, strained eyes he envisions a victory, but the opposite direction shows an inevitable defeat.”

The idea of the name came from this very concept of a man standing in a battle, about to be wiped out, and being able to see, in a split second, two very different paths to travel down. As a horse is washed away by the sea, so is the man by his own defeat.

Their very first CD, I Order The Sun To Shine On Everyone, is the subject of a 30-concert tour that Janis is going on, along with Ellsworth, his opening act. Band members Angelina Lucero, Cynthia Fike and Kyle Andrews, could not make the tour for various reasons.

The tour was ultimately what got them to perform here at Eastern. Janis and Ellsworth were on their way to New York City from the previous week’s performance at Messiah College and asked the Eastern Student Activities Board if they could also perform here. It was organized right then and there.

Horse In The Sea plans to find a booking agent and representative manager. Until then, they plan to continue their tour, hopefully write another CD in a year or two, and keep on producing and writing the songs they love.

As for the concert in Eastern, it was a success in any aspect of the word. Although the attendance was small, “the crowd was great,” said Janis, “and they were really into it.”

For more information, see myspace.com/horseinthesea.