This past weekend, fans of Raleigh’s local music scene had the chance to attend a two-night music event held to support NC State’s own radio station, 88.1 WKNC.

Last weekend’s Double Barrel Benefit was held on Feb. 1-2 at the venue Kings in Raleigh, featuring a wide variety of music artists and genres. Each night featured four different artists. Night one of the event featured Das Drip, Real Dad, Max Gowan and Kate Rhudy, while the second night included performances from the artists M8alla, Young Bull, Moon Racer and GRRL*.

Jules Conlon, a fourth-year studying biological sciences and the general manager of WKNC, spoke about this year’s Double Barrel Benefit in an email after the event.

“I was very happy with how the show turned out,” Conlon said. “We had a decent turnout, and a lot of people who I’d never seen before showed up, which was cool as this hopefully means we raised some awareness of WKNC. I think the turnout was a bit lower than last year, but I haven’t seen the numbers yet.”

The Double Barrel Benefit is held to help raise funds for WKNC which go toward the other events they hold for NC State students throughout the year. The event itself was planned months in advance, according to Conlon.

“I started contacting bands in October, which was the hardest part,” Conlon said. “Our sponsorship director Gab Scaff procured catering and raffle prizes, our graphic designer Ashley Darrisaw made the posters, our social media director Carlie Anderson made sure we were promoting regularly and the whole of our staff helped out in lots of other ways.

Rachel Canning**, an NC State alum and lead singer for the band Das Drip, spoke about her experience at the concert.

“It was really fun,” Canning said. “It was really cool to be asked to perform [at Double Barrel Benefit], and it was really cool to be specifically asked to do this.”

Canning worked as a DJ at WKNC during her time at NC State, and has attended previous iterations of the event.

“When I was a DJ, I volunteered to help out [at the Double Barrel Benefit] a couple of times,” Canning said.

Each artist that performed at the event brought forth their own unique style and showed off the variety of genres in music, as mentioned by Conlon.

“I had a lot of people tell me they appreciated the different genres of music represented in the lineup, which is really what I was going for,” Conlon said.

Yvonne Chazal and Emma Badorrek, two Raleigh residents and NC State alumni, attended this year’s Double Barrel Benefit. Both also formerly worked at WKNC as students of NC State.

“Every year, Double Barrel is something different, and it [was] great this year,” Chazal said. “The divide of genres for each night isn’t new, but they’ve put more of an emphasis on it in recent years.”

Badorrek also commented on this year’s event.

“It’s nice to kind of attend without having to work [at the event],” Badorrek said. “It is a good way to be able to experience the event in a different way.”

Conlon hopes that the event was able to show its attendees the wide variety of music that can be found in the Raleigh area.

“I hope that they got a taste of the many types of local music we have here in the Triangle,” Conlon said, “and that they got a sense of the community we have here at WKNC.”

Although the 2019 Double Barrel Benefit has concluded, its fans can certainly look forward to next year’s event and the next set of musical talents that will be featured in it.

Editor’s note: WKNC is a branch of NC State Student Media.

*Editor’s note: The article was updated to show the correct artists present at the event.

**Editor’s note: The spelling of Rachel Canning’s name was correctly updated.