Halifax proves it does have talent

Having never been to JJ's, and not being involved in the university's music scene, I was dubious to say the least. Leaving the venue 3 hours later, I was smiling and content, it was a surprisingly good event!

There were three judges - Billy Goldring, Helen Adams and Adrian Das - the latter taking the role of Simon Cowell whilst Alex Fink took the role of compere.

Oli Warne opened the evenings' proceedings as an already selected act for Woodstock, with a lovely set of relaxing songs, he's one act I'll be keeping a look out for Saturday, Week 9.

He was followed on to stage by Claire, who demonstrated her 'Poi' abilities. For those, like me, who are unaware of what that is, I tracked her down to discover that it's an ancient Mauri activity, that I described to a friend as juggling socks with weights on the end. After talking to Claire, it turns out that's just what it was. She switched to ribbon work half way through, which prompted Goldring to say: "Halifax clearly does have talent."

There was a break between each of the five acts. We took the opportunity to catch up with the group who would end the proceedings: Irresistaboyzz. Asked who their inspiration was, Philip Walker, group-founder, said: "Ronan Keating was my childhood hero. We were going to sing Love me for a Reason but we didn't have enough time to rehearse. The group had decided to sing Keep on Movin' by the iconic 90's pop group 5ive.

They rated their chances as 'Slim to none' and 'Poor.'

Back to the proceedings, and the stage was taken by Gideon Slipman, who opened his set with Rock Star by Nickleback, which my co-reviewer said "required backing singers" but it did get definite crowd reaction with the classic hand-waving action from the masses. His second track was a much improved Wonderwall which we thought was tuneful but lacked the crowd-grabbing factor. Das said it "had the potential to be better".

Next up was the risky choice by Matt Harris of stand-up comedy. Luckily, I love it, unfortunately for him, he struggled to get the crowd's attention, possibly due to opening with "I thought I'd talk about my sex life", which isn't always the best way to warm up a relatively sober crowd.

The Irresistaboyzz

Harris soon ignored his script on his hand and raised laughs aplenty, possibly because he was able to accept "that wasn't funny either".

Goldring said that set: "In terms of charity, you are a winner tonight". And that was enough for a brave Harris.

The fourth act had us expecting some form of grunge indie, instead we got equally beautiful vocals and guitar work from the duo of J boys made up of Richard McLaughlin and Diggory Dunn.

They had fun lyrics ('The Deramore took my money from me/but I had to say, I don't regret a single day') and once McLaughin got into his vocals, they were beautiful, out of four songs, we loved 2, liked 1 and were unsure about the other. The duo convinced us and we gave them our vote.

Adams said she "loved the topics of their songs" whilst Das warned, "get some bass otherwise at Woodstock you'll be drowned out".

After their set they were happy and admitted: "It's the first time we've played."

Then after the raffle (where I happily won a CD) the tension rose, and the boys decked in white took to the stage - here came The Irresistaboyzz. The hype was definitely there, as were their groupies, the voices? Yeah, they sort of were. Most importantly, the fun and essence of RAG most definitely were.

Goldring summed them up as "special" whilst Das asked "where's the sex?" (where 3/5 promptly removed their shirts)

Reviewers' Choice

• J Boys
• Irresistaboyzz

Judges Choice (who now have the chance to perform at Woodstock 2008)

• J Boys
• Irresistaboyzz
• Claire (to perform as part of Jugglesoc)

The remaining rounds will take place:

• Goodricke and Alcuin - Friday, Week 6
• James - Wednesday, Week 7
• Derwent - Friday, Week 7
• Langwith - Saturday Week 7
• Vanbrugh - Sunday Week 7

All at 7pm

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