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York, even its most ardent fan will admit, is no band mecca. With a limited amount of medium-sized gig venues it's hard to get big bands in. However Stereo last week played host to Vanbrugh band nights. It featured three bands who were started by students on campus and organised by them, showing remarkable initiative.
It's also hard to judge a student band compared to bands who play complete with glossy tour lists, roadies and agents. What most student bands possess is musical quality, bags of it. That is not a problem; it's getting four or five people, some of whom might want to go in different directions, some of whom might want more of the limelight than they're currently getting, to cohere in a way that makes them more than the sum of their parts. It's a lofty task - many professional bands struggle with it - but not an impossible one.
The first band Panda Cubs I unfortunately missed due to work but not forgetting my journalistic integrity I scouted round the bar for opinions. The prevailing consensus amongst the students there was that they were very good. Even the barstaff mentioned their professionalism and clarity when playing.
The second band, Sugar King made me feel as though I had wandered back into the 1980s. Big hair, Brian May big, was everywhere so much so that it almost looked as though the singers had waves of candy floss stuck to their heads. Their songs were typically power metal, squalling guitar solos and fast-beat percussion. While the songs were perfectly passable, about drugs quite often if I recall, the band did feel like a group of very talented individuals who hadn't quite interacted with each other fully. Though this may seem harsh, Sugar King obviously had some talent and with a bit tighter song writing and a few less guitar solos would be a much better outfit.
The last band were Chuck Jager. Having seen the lead singer drinking a pint of red bull like water I was expecting him to almost burst through the ceiling, but he limited his showmanship to some guitar playing right into the crowd. The instrumentation here felt very tight and controlled and definitely gave the impression of a band that is going places. Their finest piece was a cover of Talking Head's 'Psycho Killer', which, while not capturing the menace of the original, still retained a certain sharp tang. Improvements must be made - sometimes the singing was a little quiet and muffled and the band rushed from song to song with unseemly haste - but the short slot time was perhaps the reason. With Pizza Hut filling my belly I left Stereo humming Psycho Killer, much more enthusiastic about York's band scene.
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