Cambridge Band Comp - Heat 3

Heat 3 was last night at the Soul Tree. If there was a theme to last night, it was the All Cambridge Sing Like An American heat. A shame for me personally, I so much prefer people to develop their own voice, but there we go. We had

Everyone suffered with the sound a bit last night. The bands were cymbal-heavy, so the guitars just dropped out in the choruses.

A.R.T. rock band with a brass section. Not a ska-core band though! In fact they sounded a bit like a US high school band, with a brass section. I never really heard the saxophonist. The trumpeter was a bit all over the place, which was a shame - if he'd have played better then it might have thumped the music through a bit. As it was it was enthuastic US modern rock, if a little ragged. The judges liked them though

After Effect were a little more British sounding. Three piece rock with a broken bass. The bass is important in three piece bands of this ilk to give some kind of definition, but last night it was mostly pops and hisses. The guitar work was solid if masked by a ton of warm distortion, which again disappeared when the cymbals got going. The drummer was the best thing about this band, chopping and changing to do his part to keep things interesting. Good vocals

Failing Stacey play classic hair rock: I'm not sure if Failing Stacey felt they played badly. I hope so, because they did. It was the worst performance from a singer on stage I've seen for some time. He had the right voice for it, husky despite his youth. But he's never listened to him own singing and he really needs to start. The rest of the band would have had to be amazing to make up for it, and they couldn't live up to that. They had the crowd going to fair, who must have been so near the front that they couldn't hear the vocals. They even got the chant for "one more song" which they duly played, much to the chagrin of the organisers.

I admit I was a bit peeved when they played the encore, it meant that they ran over and the last band would have less time to play etc. But how can you chastise a rock band for being rebellious? It seems a bit silly really. All right, so there are better things to rebel against than gig organisers but I'm sure the crowd liked it and that's what's important for the band

Operation FM gave the best performance of the night. Tight US modern rock with solid songs and good vocals, by a band who feel really together in what they are doing. I'm slightly surprised they lost out to A.R.T. in the end, but this was probably because they do sound very much like Green Day and have yet to find their own sound. Not a band with a great natural audience, but the won the beer cheer against the odds and it looks like they have the wherewithall to win over audiences and that's a real good asset

steve

Article posted by Brad Spreadsheet on Wednesday 29th April 2009, 00:04:00

Back to the News board