Hayden Forbes and Blue Swans performed at The Cabin Saturday night. The Feb. 26 concert was part of The University Activities Commission’s weekly concert series. 

Forbes, a second-year communication and recording arts student, has been producing music since 2017 and opened the night with his first solo performance. 

“I’ve always been a huge fan of music,” he said. “I was listening to Eminem and I thought, ‘I could do something like this’ and I got addicted to it.”

Forbes first performed at a UAC open mic event in the fall that opened the door to booking his first show.

“I realized I should start doing open mic nights with the pandemic getting better,” he said. “I did two songs that night and the event director said I could book a show. I responded to him right away and I’ve been counting down the days since.”

Forbes is looking to use his time at UW-Eau Claire to learn about becoming a successful producer. 

“I’m using my communications major to help with the promotion and business side of music and the recording arts certificate to learn how to produce,” he said. “I would love to be big enough to tour the world while making and producing my own music.”

After Forbes’ show, featured band Blue Swans took the stage to finish out the night.

Blue Swans includes members from the Eau Claire area and across Wisconsin, and recorded their first EP in Eau Claire, according to lead singer Chris Swangim. 

“It started as a solo project about three years ago,” Swangim said. “It took sometime to bring it all together, things just got to the place where I started getting a band together.”

Blue Swans has since moved to Minneapolis, Minn. but they were able to come back to perform in Eau Claire. 

“UAC reached out to me to do a livestream when we were quarantining more aggressively and I totally missed the message,” Swangim said. “I got back to them months later and asked them to keep us in mind for future shows and we were able to make it happen.”

In addition to being the lead singer, Swangim is also the band’s namesake.

“I wanted to name the project a version of my last name because I’ve had so many ridiculous nicknames,” they said. “It started just as Swans but after doing some research we found there was another group named Swans and they had a decent following. So we pivoted to Blue Swans.” 

The Cabin concert series continues Saturday, March 5 with White Line Darko. 

UAC will also be hosting a Singer/Songwriter Slam event on March 11. The winner of the Slam will receive a paid local gig at The Cabin, according to the UAC website. 

A full schedule of upcoming performances and information about different events can be found in the Davies student center or The Cabin website.

Hayden Forbes’s music can be found on Spotify and Youtube.

Blue Swans can be found on Spotify, Apple Music and Instagram.

Mohr can be reached at [email protected]