In a blue-and-black plaid button down and dark blue jeans, UNC freshman Dante Macy shared an original song of his at his first UNC Open Mic Night on Monday.
The music education major warmed up his voice with covers of “Use Me” by Bill Withers and “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol before launching to the consistent, jumpy beat of “Nice to Meet You,” an original composition. In this specific piece, the narrator reminisces about details and quirks he remembers about a past relationship, commenting how the individual has changed since their times together on cold nights.
According to Macy, he was inspired to write the song about three years ago after a breakup, which resulted in the line “Don’t you remember our time in December?” Mentioned at the start of the song and repeated until the song faded out, several audience members clapped along to the beat.
“I think it went very well,” Macy said about his performance.
Macy’s interest in playing guitar was fully realized after seeing a video of Ed Sheeran playing live on YouTube, which has resulted in him playing the guitar for over three years. Since then, Macy has put on roughly 150 live performances. However, he stopped when the workload of school, UNC’s Chamber Choir and UNC’s Concert Choir started weighing on him.
“It’s been awhile since I played out,” Macy said. “Sometimes you got to give a break to something you love.”
That break, however, was compromised when he saw signs for the University Program Council’s Open Mic Night and was reminded of how good it felt to play live. In fact, Macy said he actually forgot some of the “Nice to Meet You” lyrics about halfway through the song and started making them up, though it was hardly noticeable. Macy credits all his prior experiences performing with teaching him how to handle every possible situation, including forgetting song lyrics.
The next Open Mic Night will be at 9 p.m. Monday, February 19 in the UC Food Court.
Dante Macy Music: https://www.facebook.com/dantemacymusic/
