While Alabama football fans are preparing themselves for what’s essentially an extremely well marketed, glorified practice, students not only around the country, but at other SEC schools, are looking forward to other events this spring.

While Tuscaloosa is engulfed by A-Day this weekend, students at Vanderbilt University will be enjoying their annual Rites of Spring concert, listening to Public Enemy, The National, Matt & Kim and headliner Kid Cudi.

Now, before anyone wants to burn me at the stake for heresy, know that I love Alabama football and in the fall I live for game days. A-Day just doesn’t do it for me because it seems like just another lucrative event that attracts primarily non-students.

It begs the question: where are all the student-centric events, like the ones other universities offer, here at the Capstone?

The University of Tennessee’s annual spring concert, annoyingly called Volapalooza, features Girl Talk and Matt Costa this year. Hell, even Auburn has booked two big names—Taio Cruz and Neon Trees—to perform on campus.

According to a story in Auburn’s student newspaper, their University Program Council chose those artists specifically because they both play in the stadium before football games.

In our April Fool’s edition, we included a story about Jay-Z performing at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater. It says a lot about UA and Tuscaloosa when we consider the notion of someone like Jay-Z performing here to be utterly ridiculous. I mean, who wouldn’t go see a concert where he performed “Run This Town” and Alabama played “Dixieland Delight?”

You’d think a school—the University of Alabama, for example—with both the money and the resources that these other universities possess could provide the same level of entertainment for its students.

Let me just clarify that I love the local music scene, and I couldn’t do my job if I didn’t. So let’s have something like Volapalooza, which features a lesser-known local act as the opener. An event like that would benefit everyone—a local act would have the opportunity to increase its exposure by performing with a well-known artist, and students can both discover new local music and see the big name artists they know.

This is yet another example of UA’s inability to offer incentives for current students to stay here. The Ferguson Center and SGA’s role in bringing Band of Horses and The Avett Brothers to Tuscaloosa is certainly a step in the right direction on the music front at least. Keep ‘em coming, please.