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For the benefit of those who are not familiar with The Blanks, they are an a cappella group who perform a mixture of American television theme music and comedy sketches. The Blanks are made up of Sam Lloyd (baritone); Paul Perry (bass); Phil McNiven (tenor); and George Miserlis (baritone). Oh yes, they were also cast as Ted (Buckland)’s band on a little known series called Scrubs!
As a collective they may be recognised as being ‘Ted’s band’, however, one thing is made very clear when seeing them perform: this is certainly not a one man band. As an a cappella group, each of their vocals creates wonderful harmonies, which will both entertain and impress any audience – while they do perform a couple of American television show music (including the Scrubs theme, ‘Superman’) they also cover more popular songs, such as their interpretation of THE FOUR GREATEST SONGS OF ROCK (‘Who Are You?’; ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’; ‘Lollypop’; ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’) and their finale medley (‘Teenage Dream’; ‘F*ck You’; ‘Barbara Streisand’; ‘Only Girl in the World’; ‘Dynamite’).
Apart from being very talented singers, they also captivated the audience with their charisma as performers. Amidst their songs, the group interspersed several comedy sketches which were thoroughly enjoyed by the audience – especially by those lucky/terrified individuals who were singled out of the audience by the singers. Their shamelessly hilarious promotion of their albums was a personal favourite sketch as it demonstrated the wonderful sense of humour these four had as a collective group.
However, there was one problem I had with the gig. With a slight running time, that barely clocked in at an hour, the gig was simply not long enough to fully appreciate The Blanks. Although by the end of their show they were in a hurry to leave York for another gig in Preston, they were kind enough to sign autographs and have pictures taken with their fans - my friend and I among the lucky number that snapped a photograph with Sam Lloyd (Ted) and told him that we thoroughly enjoyed The Blanks performance.
For anyone who has an opportunity to see the Blanks perform live, I would strongly suggest going. Watching them perform was definitely one of the highlights of my time at York. While some people may go to their gig being a Scrubs fan they will leave being a fan of The Blanks.
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