IFalling Through April 

Canopy Club

Champaign-Urbana

by Connor Hannan

t was overall a laxed night Sunday evening in the Champaign-Urbana area. I’m sure most of the town was wiped from an epic win over Wisconsin on Saturday, where the Fighting Illini beat the Wisconsin Badger for the first time in 20 years in Camp Randall.

With that being said, it was a slow night at the Canopy Club.

The night started off with Ancient Ways. Ancient Ways is a rock band that mostly performed covers. With the majorly of their songs being covers, I feel there were some hits and misses. One hit I’d say was a cover of Ceelo Greens “Crazy.” Here I felt they did a good job taking a pop song and turning it into a rock song and giving it a nice punk/grunge feel. A miss would be Highly Suspect’s “Bath Salts.” I would have liked a little more different tone or vibe to be different from the original.

Press the play button to check out Connon photos of Hazen

Hazen was up next and provided a nice change of pace. Hazen is a 4 piece set from Phoenix Arizona formed originally formed in 2017. Hazen performed original songs from what I could tell and lead singer Kayla Hazen had a wide vocal range. I felt she gave a nice cover of Linkin Parks “Numb” that gave a nice female vocal twist on the song.

Falling Through April (credit: Connor Hannan)

Finally, it was Falling Through April’s turn. FTA is another 4 piece set, with an interesting twist… They don’t have a bassist and roll with 2 guitars. FTA hails from Charlotte, NC and have opened for acts such as Theory of a Deadman, The Pretty Reckless and Breaking Benjamin. Again, The turnout for tonight’s show was not conclusive for how hard they went. Being from the Chicago area and a recent resident of “Cham-bana”, I feel the music scene down here isn’t a great representation for how good Falling Through April was and is. FTA consists of Mikaela on vocals, Dan and Jim on guitar and Jerome on drums. I can say that even with the under anticipated crowd, FTA over-performed and have 110%. Mikaela, who joined the band in 2016, has a stellar voice with a wide range and a voice that give hints of Hayley Williams of Paramore. Even with a smaller than usual crowd, Mikaela and Falling Through April gave 110% effort from beginning to end. 

Press the Play button to view Connor photos of FTA