Following this semester’s fundraising dinner, multiple karaoke events, and the Sound Summit, the busy UTM Music Club hosted its second open mic night this past Friday. The event was held in the Faculty Club—a venue that has a bit of a recording studio feel and that brought the audience closer to the performers.
The songs played during the night were of different genres, and most were played in an acoustic style. Several performers also delivered impressive original songs. After a few minutes of amp and microphone checks, one of UMC’s event coordinators, Sarah Elshater, kicked things off by welcoming the audience and introducing the UMC and the first performer, Sam Chen. Chen sang a cover of a Bruno Mars song and an a cappella cover of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball”.
Nicolas Colosimo also stepped to the front of the room with his electric guitar and cheeky smile and asked the audience, “Are you guys ready to rock?” Nicolas played some crazy chords and riffs in a song called “Surfing with the Alien”.
Performances alternated between acoustic covers and original songs. Helen Zhou played a sweet cover of Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You into the Dark”, as well as a Chinese song that she sang for her grandfather, who sat in the front row.
One of the most unique performances of the evening was Steven Manu’s original rap songs. He started out with his song “Unfortunate Events” and livened the room with some hip-hop beats. He ended his performance with a partly a cappella song called “Shooting in the Gym”, which he performed for the first time. Manu showed amazing creativity and a great voice to match his lyrics.
Later in the evening, Vinh-Khang Nguyen-Huu played a mix of classical piano pieces and two original songs called “Split Leaves” and “The Mad Dash”. He made playing the piano seem easy, but the patterns he layered and built on each other were overwhelmingly complex, and watching him perform was intriguing. Open mic favourites Cameron Gossman and Ryan Hellinga also covered a couple of popular songs on guitar with great energy and stage presence. The duo concluded their smartly selected set with an electric version of “Some Kind of Wonderful”.
Adam Laughton performed late in the night and had the whole room in the palm of his hand with his empassioned performance. A man of few words, he let his singing speak for itself, and it definitely raised a few goosebumps.
