Band Comp Heat 1 Review

The Cambridge Band Competition opened with Heat 1 at the Soul Tree last night.

I was one of eight judges in the room, the one with the short intro. In fact, I might email Neil and reword the intro text I sent him as Jez did somewhat mumble through my intro when he introduced me :)

Let's start with the Soul Tree. An odd choice of venue I felt, but I wonder that Simon Baker and Neil Jones felt they had little choice. Now that I no longer work at the Man on the Moon, I always find it a bit weird that the venue never gets considered for such things, since the room is well sized, placed, sounds great (apart from the monitors of course) and is well used to holding gigs. But if some people aren't comfortable there, then there we go.

The Soul Tree isn't quite used to the (Rock) band lifestyle yet. After my chav days were over and I started going to gigs, I always got a warm glow in my heart about how consistently friendly the atmosphere is in *all* gigs. The Soul Tree haven't quite figured that out yet, so we had to deal with their two suspicious looking bouncers on the door. I walked in on one of them calling the door girl "You fuckin' cunt!", who then looked at me and said "he's horrible ain't he?" which I had no answer for, because I felt that the pair of them were having a good laugh with the Good Cop/Bad Cop style game. But that little moment just made me feel a little less welcome and a little more alien.

The other common complaint about the Soul Tree is the sound. It wasn't designed for sound in mind, and it sounds hollow, yet rackety. That said though, last nights bands got away with it and the sound was OK. Little Chuck Little got the worst as their cymbals picked up the resonance of the room creating the famous "Mid-High Horrible Wash" effect I remember from Soul Tree gigs years ago.

Oh, and the drinks prices are extortionate - so be warned.

So the bands:

I think Alpha Road are a great band, and a bright little star in Cambridge. They have the best songs of the heat by some margin, but by a curious quirk of the judging scheme, we can't give marks to the bands for having the best songs, so this didn't help them much. It was a solid performance, albeit it felt like just another gig for the band, which was a shame because if the singer had just taken command of us a bit more, I think they would have won the heat.

It was a tough night for Little Chuck Little who were in the competition a year or two too early. They were a charming bunch of guys playing songs they liked pretty well. Compared to the others, the songs were simple. Despite having no audience, they held the stage well, though I sadly couldn't understand any of the in between-song-banter. I know I'd have felt rough after that gig if I was them, so I wish them well and look forward to seeing them in Cambridge soon.

Sensible Fun were reminiscent of the Eyegrode bands of the Man on the Moon circa 2004. And I love their name! Loud/Fast screamo-rock, with good drums and vocals, although the guitarist was in a different band. Some of the tunes were quite catchy, not quite Alpha Road catchy, but catchy. They had to win the heat really, because they looked like the only band who really wanted it, not only because they acted stupid, but because they really did give it everything. And they were very used to stopping to rewire their equipment after certain accidental acts of tomfoolery.

The Perfect Crime started badly, but got better as the set went on. The music is progressive post rock with no choruses or repitition, so there wasn't much to get hold of for the first time listener. I liked it, I think there's some stronger songs to come from these guys, but I'd have liked the vocals to have been tighter, and to be able to walk away from the set having a better idea of what I'd heard. They could well have won the heat too.

A note to anyone who plays last at the band competition - the judges have to hand in the scoresheets half way through your set. So please play your best three songs first. I would have probably given the Perfect Crime a couple more points had I been able to listen to all their songs, as I went with it more as time went on.

Sensible Fun won by about 10 points over Alpha Road, which was right, given the criteria I think, it's a band competition, not a songwriters one, and the criteria for each would seem to be different.

Article posted by Brad Spreadsheet on Wednesday 15th April 2009, 00:04:00

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