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Fan support leads to online success for student musician

Claire Krieger, Senior Staff Writer

Miami University senior Adam Saxe recently had the opportunity of a lifetime.

He competed for a chance to be one of the opening acts for pop artist Andy Grammer in his upcoming concert in Chicago.

Saxe is double majoring in psychology and music. He is a member of the Miami University Men's Glee Club and the Cheezies. Saxe cites both of these groups and their members as being creative influences, an awesome support system and fan base, and really helpful in promoting him and the various gigs he plays around Miami's campus and in Oxford.

This fall, Saxe, along with a few other Miami students, played a gig in Uptown Park over Parents' Weekend. He has also played shows in the past at places like Brick Street Bar and Grill and Stadium Bar and Grille and has also been hired by some fraternities and sororities to play private parties.

The competition in which Saxe was recently involved was held by topblip.com. The winner of the competition is to perform a two or three song set on stage before Grammer's opening act.

Saxe heard about the contest and was unsure whether or not he wanted to enter at first. He decided to, and the video that he submitted garnered so many votes that after the preliminary round, it was seeded No. 1 in a 64-slot tournament bracket. From this point on, voting was decided by the fans, topblip.com and Andy Grammer himself.

Each round, the competitors would face a different opponent head-to-head and would be eliminated if they did not win at least two out of the three votes. Each group had one vote to cast. So, if a contestant got the fan's vote, he/she would still need to win either topblip.com's vote or Grammer's vote in order to move on to the next round. Saxe had a bye during the first round and automatically moved on to the second round. He moved through the next two rounds without much trouble at all. In the third round, however, Saxe hit a speed bump.

With 16 competitors left, things were looking good for Saxe. He was winning the fan vote against his competitors and said he was "cautiously optimistic" about his chances. Unfortunately, even though Saxe did win the fans' vote, Grammer and topblip.com both cast their votes in favor of Saxe's opponent for that round, which left him out of the running in the competition. Saxe said winning the fan vote was definitely encouraging. "The point differential was staggering, which just shows that I had a lot of support. It had to do with four people's opinions, not the opinions of the entire Miami campus," Saxe said.

The publicity that his video submissions are getting him is another reason for Saxe to stay positive. He is not in contact with a record producer in Indiana, his video was the site's top viewed video for the week, and the website is giving him $50 to treat himself to some new headphones.

Miami sophomore Colin Petrello said, "I think that the competition was really a great opportunity for Adam to get his name out there, as well as a chance to promote some of his music to a larger audience. It was also cool to see the amazing support from the fan base he already has."

"I definitely don't regret [entering the competition]. Everything that came out of it was positive," said Saxe, "I never thought that my video would get 10,000 views in four days."

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Saxe is very thankful to everyone who supported him and voted for him. Look for his name in the future because it seems like he may be destined for stardom.