A night of live music was presented at the Wit’s End Café last Friday.Jonathan Ruiz, programmer at Student Life, organized this event and brought a wonderful duo to perform for students.
The Wit’s End was arranged with chairs and tables around a platform from where Jay Fahy and Nick Magliato delighted the crowd with their music promptly at 6 p.m. The Wit’s End gave the feeling of a cozy living room at the beginning, with people sipping on hot coffee and tea waiting for the duo to start. Although the night started a little slow, Fahy and Magliato managed to break the ice and got the small crowd to join in singing, “Celebrate good times, come on!”
The crowd grew to about thirty people who really seemed to enjoy their music. Fahy, vocals, and Magliato, guitar, really interacted with the crowd and had them going for the two hours the show lasted.
The duo performed songs from various artists including Dave Matthews, Madonna, and Ashley Simpson. Magliato managed to transform his voice to sound exactly like Simpson, surprising the crowd and receiving nods of approval. Fahy and Magliato also performed an African song “Elias” that they had learned on a recent trip to Zimbabwe.
Fahy and Magliato have been playing together for three years now and seem to have a great response from friends and students who sing along to their songs. Fahy was a great entertainer as well, standing up from his chair to dance and steal some smiles from the crowd. He even had Magliato stand up to pose for the flashing cameras that had been making them feel like “celebrities” throughout the show.
The crowd did not seem like Wit’s End regulars, although Ruiz said he estimated that about half of the attendees were from UMass and others were locals from the duo’s hometown of Long Meadow, MA.
Ruiz was pretty satisfied with the outcome of the event. “It was fun and good. More people from UMass than I thought would come joined us,” said Ruiz.
The event is one of the first nights of live music that are expected to be held at the Wit’s End this semester. Ruiz says he is “working on bringing different bands to play here on campus.”
One of the attendees, senior Anna Frader, said she is looking forward to the prospect of having more café shows like this one. “It is a very personable environment to listen to music on a fall evening,” she commented.
The event was a success thanks to the charisma of Fahy and Magliato who had us all singing along, not wanting them to leave.According to Ruiz we should expect another live show at the Wit’s End in mid November. So keep your ears open and eyes alert for flyers promoting the next show.