IN YELLOW: THEIR LAST BOW

WRITTEN BY AJ JEROME DESIGNED BY ISABELLA KERN

When “In Yellow” decided to play at an online Coffeehouse in 2020, they never would have imagined the opportunities they gained through the support of the Messiah University community. The group performed in various events, showcases, and coffeehouses throughout the years, eventually gaining enough of a following to play off-campus several times.

While members of the band have since graduated, there are still three members left on-campus.

Alyssa Pye is a senior graphic design major who sings for “In Yellow” and plays bass. Noah Smith is a senior biochemistry major that plays the guitar and also sings for the band. Jon Sison is a senior engineering major who, according to Smith, “is a god at the keys.”

The band started as a group of friends who loved music and all wanted to play together. Pye and Smith lived in the same dorm their sophomore year and Smith and Sison had been friends since their freshman year.

“It’s just really like either friends who both knew each other or mutually knew each other,” Smith said. “We just kind of were like, ‘Hey, we all like to play music, let’s do something.’”

According to the band, there is not much meaning behind the name In Yellow. A since-graduated member of the band, Ryan Shillinger, name-generated it to use for the first Coffeehouse performance the band played.

“We almost switched it four times over the summer because it didn’t mean anything, but now it means something,” Smith said. “It’s so special to us and we almost switched it, and we did switch it, and we were like no, no.”

In September of 2020, “In Yellow” participated in an online, filmed Coffeehouse. The group was Pye, Smith, Sison, and Shillinger, together performing “Exile” by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver. “In Yellow” was still not an official band at the time of the Coffeehouse, but afterwards, SAB asked the group to play at Fall Fest.

“That was the first time that we played in front of a crowd. We had to formulate an hour set of music. Still had our masks and everything. We had to take them off to sing and put them back on,” Pye said. “But yeah, that was our first time and that was just a lot of fun trying to formulate that set and everything.”

Noah Smith also reflected on the challenges that COVID-19 restrictions brought upon the band.

“I think it was definitely a big challenge, just because we weren’t really sure how we were allowed to practice, where we were allowed to practice, if we were allowed to sing indoors or anything like that,” Smith said. “It was a super unique challenge, it was really fun.”

While “In Yellow” was never meant to make it past the Messiah Coffeehouse stage, the members soon found themselves playing off-campus at an ampitheater in the Lititz Springs park. Smith and Pye agreed that it was both a stressful and a fun experience filled with tech struggles and supportive fans.

“It was honestly a great time and it was a super huge privilege to do something that wasn’t just pumped up by the fact that there were a bunch of students right there on-campus who’d conveniently show up,” Smith said.

“It was our first solo thing off-campus in Lititz, and it was cool to see people even drive out 2 hours to come see us,” Pye said. “I would say that there was, what, like a hundred people there, even more than a hundred? So that was just really cool, like wow, you guys actually came out to see us, not just on-campus.”

As for after graduation, the future for the members of “In Yellow” is filled with grad school, jobs, and moving. Although the band agrees that if they were ever back for a summer, they would love to have another opportunity to play together, they also know that the future is uncertain.

“In the end I think it’s a pretty romantic end that we spent so much time doing it and then sometimes things have to come to an end,” Smith said.

“I think that if we ever got a chance to play again, if we ever had a summer or just a time where we were all together, all of us would jump on it.”