All the way from Haas Fine Arts Center, cheering and shouts of “Teddy,” could be heard. Owen Park was packed with students and community members Sept. 6 waiting for singer-songwriter Teddy Geiger to take the stage.

Geiger is best known for his song, “For You I Will (Confidence),” which appeared on his first album, “Underage Thinking,” in 2006.  He has also acted in the movie, The Rocker alongside Rainn Wilson (The Office) and Emma Stone (Easy A)
in 2008.

Even though the audience was screaming his name, to play some of his past hit songs, Geiger remained composed.

“You kind of get used to dealing with distractions,” Geiger said. “Whether it’s hecklers, or someone being like, ‘ I love you’ good or bad you are always faced
with something.”

The University Activities Commission here at UW-Eau Claire brings artists to campus every year.

UAC Concert Co-Chair, Laura West said they wanted to bring in a bigger name to campus right away to help spread the word about their organization and hopefully get more students involved.

“We like to look for every genre,” West said. “There was a time when we did a lot of alternative but now we have branched out. We are trying to look at what’s popular now-a-days in music.”

The journey 

Geiger was previously signed with Columbia records, but soon decided to part due to creative differences.

“I sent songs in, and they were like, ‘that’s not a hit, sing this song,’” Geiger said. “It felt very different from the first one I did, so eventually my manager got a job with another label and I left.”

Geiger didn’t give up; he started writing again. He later moved to New York City where he met another manager. He decided to go through PledgeMusic, a fundraising site for artists and musicians.

Fans donated enough to allow Geiger to self-produce the record and do it how he felt it should be done. The second record was titled, “Living Alone,” and came out in 2010. The title of the album held a lot of symbolism for Geiger, he said.

He moved home for six months and started working on new songs.

“It was me just starting to learn about production, basically just put a bunch of demos out,” Geiger said. “A lot of stuff came out of jams with friends and getting back into writing and getting back into where music came from and also feeling pretty isolated at the time.”

Geiger said moving back home was difficult because all of his friends were off at school, he just left his manager and felt he didn’t have any direction.  Soon after releasing the album he moved to New York City and started on another album called, “The Last Fears,” which is out now.

The title, “The Last Fears” relates to a story Geiger told about riding a roller-coaster when he was younger.

“I remember I really wanted to go on the roller-coaster, but when I was actually going up the hill I was crying,” Geiger said. “I was up there with my dad, and he said ‘if you weren’t afraid, this wouldn’t be any fun.’”

He said it all has to do with the moment of anticipation which he feels when he plays at shows or when he performs a new song
to someone.

“There’s that moment where you have the last fears, and they become excitement and energy,” Geiger said.

In the spotlight

During his concert, Geiger    played songs from all three of his albums. He played his song, “For You I Will (Confidence)” twice, at audience request, but in slightly different ways.

Geiger said he has never had a fan get too far out of line, but one situation did stick out to him.

“I have had condoms thrown at me,” Geiger said.

Down the line, he said he hopes to do more writing, production and touring full-time.

After the concert ended, the park was full of people waiting to meet Geiger.

“It was the best night of my life,” Eau Claire freshmen Brooke Kersten said. “I have always been a Teddy Geiger fan. I would love to meet him one day.”

Another student, freshman Rachel Geissler said she was excited to have been so close to the singer.

“I liked that he let us come right next to him, and get personal with him,” Geissler said.

Catch Geiger on tour. He’ll be playing his next concert at 5 p.m. Sept. 22nd at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis, MN.