The Bull(shit) & Gate

It just goes to show exactly what you can accomplish when you have more friends than you do talent.
Which inflammatory introduction leads me to the main subject of this rant. After all, it has been a while since the last one (on the blog anyway, I do plenty in real life).

We played the first round of Emergenza at Kentish Town's Bull & Gate pub. Let me talk you through the day.

First thing's first, there were supposed to be 8 bands showing up. 3 of them dropped out. One of them had an injured drummer, so we'll forgive that. Apparently he had a broken leg or something. But 2 of them just never got back in touch with the promoter.
So as a result each band got to play an extra song. Annoyingly, it also meant our slot got pushed forward a little.

So the first band went on. Holy crap. Now this event claimed to be all about live original music. The first band was a 3-piece and they used more backing tapes than they had songs. Seriously. All of their songs had backing, and one of them the real drummer didn't even start playing until about 2 minutes in. Both of the guys (I'd say 'singers' but I fear I would insult even the most dire karaoke noobs) were fairly good at their instruments, but as well as being about 4 years old, neither of them could sing. It was like listening to a Kraftwerk remix of a dying whale. They should've been bitchslapped for not being 100% live. But they brought along the entire Emo Squad, so they got a completely undeserved crowd vote.

Right, the second band of the night were actually damn good. Free Reign, they're called, and I'll be keeping an eye on them. 5 piece, twin Les Pauls, plenty of harmonies and big choruses. Can't really fault them, other than maybe being a bit too loud for the venue. Reminded me of Primal Scream with a bit of Charlatans in there. They're the only one of the bands I'll use the name of, since they're the only ones who deserve it.

There was another band in here, I'm sure of it. They must've been som awesome I can't even remember them.

Then us. We rocked. I had a lot of fun, playing with what was left of the crowd. The really fucking annoying thing was that everyone who had come to see one specific band left when they had come off stage, or didn't come in before they went on. This meant that instead of discovering new bands, they pretty much just skew the votes. I wouldn't have minded all that much if the other bands had actually been good.

Next band were kind of unremarkable. 3-piece, they definitely wanted to be the Hendrix Experience. Some of their songs weren't too bad, but the singer (called Elvis - I made an awesome "He's left the building" joke when the guy introducing them wanted to know where he was) didn't really have the confidence to pull it off. I think with some more practice they could actually be quite good.
Problem was, in this competition for live original music, they ended on a Hendrix cover. Complete sell-out too, since I think that bought them a load of votes. So they should be disqualified for that.

And the last band of the night were about as good as the first. They were far too loud, the guitars were really twangy and ear-buggering, the singer was crap (and since he sang with an Irish twang he should really have got kudos for that) and the songs didn't seem to have any noticable sequence. It was like intro-NOISE-NOISE-NOISE-end. But since it looked like they'd brought along every single person from their home town, their crowd response was far better than ours was. I didn't even waste my time staying to the end, because you could tell who was going to win before any votes were even taken.

So there we are. Yet another battle of the bands competition thing which ended up with a totally screwed-up result. Story of my life, that. I can nearly guarantee though that when these bands are away from their home crowds, they won't get any further in the competition. Local support from friends is fine until you go further away, and then you actually need talent to back it up - and that's exactly where these guys will fall flat.

We didn't get through (big shock) but if Free Reign did I have to wish them the best of luck. They really are the only band from that night (other than us) who deserved to get to the next stage.