First Open Mic of Spring semester “Wow”s FTC students

By Clarissa Biener

Five Towns College is welcoming back students for the Spring semester with various campus events over the first two weeks of school. On Wednesday, January 14th, the Campus Activities Board held an Open Mic event as part of “WOW”: Weeks of Welcome. The Open Mic took place at 12:30PM in the Upbeat, giving FTC students a chance to listen to performances from their fellow classmates, as well as the opportunity to sign up to perform throughout the event.

The Open Mic featured a wide breadth of genres, from Broadway (Someone Like You, Jekyll and Hyde) to Country (Rainbow, Kacey Musgraves), and from Punk (The Phoenix, Fall Out Boy) to Rap (DTMF, Bad Bunny).

Xandira Allen, who sang Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire,” is a Music Performance major and new to the FTC community. “I feel like being here, I have a lot more opportunities to do what I want in terms of education and in terms of music in general,” said Allen. “There’s a lot more opportunities to get involved.”

Some students even performed their own original music. Marcus Francis, a Business Audio major,  goes by the stage name “boogz bunni” and is one half of the rap duo 7X5. “I feel like [Open Mic] helps me try out new music because I feel like I can really see, like, the immediate reaction that everybody gives to it,” said Francis. “If people will mess with it, it would be something more likely that I would drop.”

The audience cheered on each performance. “I thought it was excellent,” said FTC Mass Comn student Gregory Patane. “There was a lot of talent as well as a lot of passion in the Open Mic.” The event was emceed by Khalid Jabouin, who kept the audience hyped and ensured each performer felt the crowd’s energy.

The next Open Mic will be held on Wednesday, January 21st at 6PM in the Downbeat.