In his song "We Don't Care," Kanye West raps, "Throw your hands up in the sky/And say we don't care …" He could have been singing about the widespread indifference toward Spring Concert that appears now to pervade the College. The highlight of the Amherst College Program Board's (ACPB) spring program, this year the concert hangs in the balance as ACPB scrambles to find a performer. It managed to attract neither Wyclef Jean nor Mos Def, the top two picks in a campus-wide vote in which fewer than 400 students participated.

This fact is striking for two reasons. First, ACPB has now failed to secure the services of the performer most students (who took part in the vote) wanted to see for a third straight year. We recognize the need for an initial vote to gauge student response. Big names like Wyclef and Mos Def, however, surely belong to the upper limit of ACPB's concert budget, and we fail to understand why ACPB conducted a runoff vote without first making sure at least one of the two acts was available.

Similarly, the performers at the concert in 2005 and 2006-Margaret Cho and Guster, respectively-were backup choices. The presence of a performer's name on the vote generates expectations that the student body may actually have the chance to watch, say, Ben Folds live in concert. In recent times, ACPB has disappointed those expectations.

We think repeated disappointment has largely contributed to our second observation-the remarkable decline in student response to both the initial and runoff votes. 1,141 students voted in last year's initial referendum, which represents a healthy voting percentage of over 70 percent and almost thrice the number for this year. Even more tellingly, a mere 206 voters cared to vote in last semester's runoff: a statistic that betrays broad disillusionment with the process.

For an event that easily costs between $20,000 and $30,000, the Spring Concert involves a significant investment by the College. Yet this sum, in the grander hierarchy of artistes, will attract either niche or new acts, perhaps Dashboard or Switchfoot. At the same time, the Mullins Center at UMass regularly brings the likes of West, Green Day and Maroon 5 to town. With ACPB's inability to bring quality acts-or at least ones around the same level as UMass'-and students' disillusionment, it's time to ask the College if Spring Concert is a wise expenditure.

We don't think it is. The money could conceivably be put to better use on either free tickets to the Mullins' events, or for an altogether different purpose. The College needs newer and better recreational facilities (read: a non-makeshift game room), for instance; even making a contribution into the discretionary pot will probably benefit more students in a lasting way than a concert. The Spring Concert has simply lost its appeal for the majority of Amherst students; we will not be sorry to see it go.