15.4 Evaluation

In the end of term gig I performed in five different bands but seeing as this unit is about the evaluation of progress I will talk about the main two bands I was in: Band C and Band F. I will look back at the whole first term and analyse both these bands, explaining the strengths and weaknesses of both. I will focus mainly on the potential of these bands and discuss how good things could have been.

Band C

In Band C, we deviated from our normal trend of playing well known classic rock songs and decided to play ‘Take Of Your Colours’ from the self –titled You Me At Six debut album. In hindsight I don’t think this was the best song we could have picked for the end of term gig. From an audience perspective the song is very upbeat, jumpy which makes sense because it’s a pop-punk song and is in a major key. I don’t have a problem with pop-punk, it’s just that I used to be in a very pop-punk band outside of college and to be honest I’ve grown fairly tired with that genre. To make matters worse, I played 4 out of 5 pop-punk songs at the end of term gig (2 You Me At Six songs and 2 Paramore songs). I felt like the genre didn’t really work well with our band. Mads for instance is a country singer at heart and although she really tried hard with this song, she expressed to us afterwards that she didn’t enjoy singing it all that much. Jack and Tim like classic rock and play music by bands like Led Zeppelin etc in their free time and, although they are both good musicians in their own right, I feel like they didn’t have a feel for the nuances of the genre like Aidan and I do (as we’ve both played songs like this before in the aforementioned outside-of- college band). A lot of the sound of pop-punk comes from having aggressive pick-attack and in this song in particular there is a lot of rhythmic palm muting in the verses and in the outro there are palm muted triplets and I feel like as a band we didn’t really capture that tonality and style adequately enough. On a more positive note I felt like our physical performances of the track were pretty good. In that respect, I feel like we did capture the energy of the track a bit more as we were moving about and making good eye contact with each other. Another very positive thing I liked about Band C was our relationships with each other. I know Aidan and Jack from secondary school and I’ve actually been in bands with them both previously, I have become close friends with Tim and we are in a band together currently outside of college with Aidan. I have become friends with Shaune and Mads too and I think the highlight of this first term for me is being in that band with such friendly people. There was a real sense of cohesion and I think the social, inter-personal aspect of a band is one of the most important. Our communication in Band C was excellent as a result of this. As previously mentioned, our discussions about song selection were very good and similarly we were able to schedule regular rehearsals effectively and in the lead-up to the end of term gig we rehearsed a lot and benefitted greatly because of it. In rehearsals themselves our communication amongst ourselves was very good and we were able to effectively highlight parts of the song that needed working on as a band as well as individual aspects that we could change or improve upon. In conclusion, I found Band C to be the most positive and co-ordinated band that I was a part of in this term. There was definitely a level of professionalism and there were standards that we adhered to in order to develop as a band. Communication and organisation were very good, as was the social aspect and our physical interactions on stage during performances. We could have improved a lot by sticking to the strengths of individual band members. We had learned during our two band choices in our class performances that we work well as more of a classic rock band doing Thin Lizzy and Guns ‘N’ Roses than we do trying to do a You Me At Six cover. If we were to continue as a band I think we should try and cover something by Led Zeppelin or The Rolling Stones or something along those lines.

Band F

In Band F, after Amy Booer left, we stopped trying to find songs that were piano based and instead looked towards the pop-punk genre once again. As we had played ‘Misery Business’ as our second compulsory track this term, Callie suggested that we played ‘Crushcrushcrush’ from the same album. As a fan of Paramore’s older music myself, I relished the opportunity to play this song on bass. Like ‘Misery Business, ‘Crushcrushcrush’ is in Drop C# tuning and the pre-chorus emphasises the low C# which, especially on bass, has a huge impact. The bass line is very fun to play and in the verses it actually walks around a little bit and it’s definitely not the typical root-notes bass line that is expected from a pop-punk song. I definitely thought that the line-up of this band was much more suited to play a song like this than Band C. Having two female vocalists to sing Hayley Williams parts was great. Callie’s powerful vocals went well with Sophie’s rich, deep voice in a yin-yang kind of way. Tom and Matt’s guitar playing was very faithful to the original track despite Matt later telling me he wasn’t that happy with the song choice and Aidan’s style of playing suits the genre nicely as previously mentioned. There were definite downsides with Band F though, despite how positive I’ve made everything sound.  The main issue with Band F was the organisation and discussion as I talked about previously in unit 15.1. Everything felt very cobbled together and rushed; I don’t think we ever sat down for a moment as a band and just talked about how anything was going. During practice and rehearsals especially there was little to no creative feedback about how we were sounding and what needed improvement. In conclusion, I thought that Band F had the most potential out of the bands I have worked in over the term, however, a lack of communication, co-ordination and overall dedication meant that we fell behind and didn’t achieve our full potential. In my opinion, not meaning to sound boastful, I think that band had the most talented individuals in the class and I think it was a great shame to see that talent wasted.  On the night of the end of term gig I thought we did actually perform ‘Crushcrushcrush’ very well but I think that’s only due to strong individual practice. That’s what that band was: 6 strong individuals rather than 1 strong band.