More than 850 studentsーmostly decked in cowboy bootsー filled the center rows of the Carole and Barry Kaye Auditorium Friday night for this year’s Fly On Music Fest.

Hosted by FAU Program Board and Owl Radio, the show featured Grammy-nominated country singer Hunter Hayes and three other B-list music artists.

Owl Radio’s DJ A-Roy hyped up the incoming crowd before introducing the first act of the night: 22-year-old hip-hop/pop singer JamieBoy, whose YouTube channel boasts nearly 327,000 subscribers.

The audience clapped and sang along to his rendition of Rihanna’s ‘Wild Thoughts’.

“I never thought this would actually be real. Up on stage in a big auditorium like this,” JamieBoy said to the crowd.

Haeley Vaughn, a country singer from Nashville, appeared next on the auditorium stage. She got her start on Season 9 of American Idol.

Vaughn, who said she’d been writing music for eight years, was audibly popular among the crowd– especially when she performed a song all about her favorite drink.

“I’m a tequila enthusiast,” Vaughn said.

The next featured artist, Matt Schuler, was a contestant on Season 5 of The Voice and opened with “Here’s to You”, an original song, and carried the set with covers of Fall Out Boy and Young the Giant.

Psychology major Abbi Villwock told the University Press she didn’t know much about the Pennsylvania native before Fly On.

“Matt Schuler really surprised me,” said Villwock.

Villwock and her friend Sylvia Frydman, a biology major, attended the show primarily to see Hunter Hayes but said they most enjoyed the performance by Schuler.

As Schuler left the stage, Kathleen Rozz, Promotions Director at Owl Radio, with the help of DJ A-Roy, pepped the crowd for the headline act, Hunter Hayes.

When he finally appeared on stage a little after 10 p.m. with his electric guitar, the crowd went wild. He opened with ‘I Want Crazy’ as the audience sang along.

As the set moved into his song ‘Invisible’, a student near the front row began to cry as she recorded video of his performance.

The 26-year-old multi-instrumentalist and self-professed “complete music nerd”, also sat down at a red piano and played a jazz tune.

The audience cheered and chanted for Hayes’s last song, ‘Wanted.’

Hayes was sick, and apologized for the quality of his voice, to which a female audience member responded, “you sound beautiful!”

“This is what my soul needs. I need to play music. So, thank you for giving me a place to play my music,” Hayes said.

According to Assistant Director of Student Activities and Involvement Richard Mahler, 859 tickets were sold for the event.

Cameren Boatner is a contributing writer with the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected].