The sounds of soft crooning and guitar strumming spilled through the doors and open windows of the University Student Union Wednesday afternoon.
Madeleine Mayi played through the slid-open windows of the second floor food court with the audience surrounding her on every side. While students ate, they were able to listen to covers of artists including Fleetwood Mac, Mac DeMarco and Drake, as well as some of her original songs.
“I came in to meet with a friend,” said freshman film major Alexis Mendez. “I just sat down seven minutes ago and now I’m going to stay until the end of the performance.”
Mayi’s performance was the second of the three noontime events that Associated Students Inc. had scheduled for the month of March. Along with the musical performance, Beach Pride Events offered board games as well as free tacos for people who voted in the ASI elections.
The location of the performance was changed from the Southwest Terrace to the Center Courtyard of the second floor of the USU, due to forecasted rain. However, foot traffic didn’t seem to suffer for the decision.
“It turned out for the better because there are a lot of people sitting around and enjoying the music,” said Beach Pride program assistant Jocelyn Pimentel.
Pimentel said that she’s gotten mostly positive feedback from students about the location change. She and her team will take the comments into consideration for the next noontime event and other performances.
Mayi seemed to thrive while strumming her mint-colored guitar and performing for people eating their lunch. She said she always loves performing live, no matter where it is.
Though she is a student at University of Southern California, Mayi decided to play at Long Beach State because one of her friends played on campus before and recommended for her to try it out.
During her sophomore year at USC, she released her first EP “Just the Six of Us,” and recently released another EP in November of 2018 called “shy.” She said before she decided to record her music it was just a hobby for her, and she’s grown as an artist since then.
“After I put an EP together I thought, ‘Oh wow this could be more than just for fun,’” Mayi said.