On a rare occasion the unusual sounds of “Ice Ice Baby” and the theme song to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” filled the Anderson Center thanks to Ingrid Michaelson, indie-pop star and Binghamton University alumna. This was the first time Michaelson was welcomed back to campus as a performer.

She charmed the mix of students and adults for close to an hour and a half. Despite her initial concerns (“I just hope it’s not like 30 people and, like, one of my old professors,”), 1,100 tickets were sold. According to Roseanne Norris, the marketing director for the Anderson Center, the venue had the capacity to hold 1,200 inside and 1,500 on the lawn. However, Norris said nearly 70 percent of those 1,100 tickets were sold to students. Australian Ben Lee opened for Michaelson during the Aug. 26 evening performance.

Known for his hit songs, “Catch My Disease” and “We’re All in This Together,” the latter which has recently been featured in commercials for the department store Kohl’s, Lee entertained the crowd with gusto along with his keyboard player Nic Johns. At one point during his set, Lee played a new song and dedicated it to his fiancee over his cell phone. Playing guitar and holding a phone proved to be a bit tricky, so the singer invited audience member Grace Morrisey to come hold the phone while he played.

“It was insane,” Morrisey said of the experience. “Completely unreal, he’s amazing.” Other audience members shared her sentiments.

Chris Strunk, a senior financial engineering and economics major, said he was surprised with Lee’s performance. “I wasn’t really expecting much, but his songs were pretty good,” Strunk said.

Both performers had tremendous crowd chemistry to go along with their fantastic performances. Junior computer science major Melissa Donohue experienced interaction with the artists firsthand. After Lee’s performance Donohue met the singer and said she thoroughly enjoyed his set and “he was also really funny.” During Michaelson’s set the singer went on a brief rant about Pipe Dream not cleaning up her language in published interviews. At that point Donohue said she yelled, “Yeah, Pipe Dream!” at the singer. Michaelson’s response: “Did somebody just yell ‘Yeah, butt cream?’”

The concert changed Donohue’s opinion on Michaelson. “I really only heard her songs on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and I didn’t even know it was her.” But after the performance Donohue said she was now a big fan.

Strunk said he was a long-time fan of Michaelson, but this was the first time he saw her live and he said he was not disappointed.

“She had an amazing personality,” he said. “I was thrilled that she could relate so well with us and that she did enjoy her time here.”

Michaelson took to the stage with a BU baseball cap, tote bag and padfolio, joking that she should be sent every Binghamton item as part of an endorsement deal. She played several of her hit songs, including “The Way I am,” “The Hat,” a cover of Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and treated the audience to something very special: a brand new, still-untitled song never performed in front of an audience. “I like to do things that are scary,” Michaelson said about the new song.

“I thought her new material sounded really great,” Strunk said. “It definitely seemed like a change from her first album. Personally, I loved the round she wrote.”

When she performed “The Hat,” which includes the lyrics, “I knitted you a hat all blue and gold, to keep your ears warm from the Binghamton cold,” Michaelson invited her fellow BU alumnae friends onto the stage to sing, truly showing the audience how fond of Binghamton she is.

Michaelson expressed great desire to return to Binghamton soon. She suggested several different venues, one in particular getting thunderous applause: the amphitheater outside of Dickinson Dining Hall.