Thursday 25 May 2017
100 Club London
What a night we had at The 100 Club on Thursday night! The Lodgers kindly opened for us and if you haven't yet seen them live, you need to. Like, seriously....
Then the competition opened with Jones Chase's, Hot Damn! The outfits, the bubbles, the t shirts, the groupies, the music - there was nothing not to love about this set - it even included a stage invasion for a collaborative You Can Call Me Al - brilliant.
Next up were The Dirty Sherlocks (formerly known as Neil and Niall) from Ashurst. These previous winners have added Neil's brother Kaivon to the set up, and wow! They were excellent and note perfect as ever with a great set (including Lumineers/Weller/Buena Vista Social Club).
Third up we had the Law Rocks virgins - first timers the Fleetwood Macs from Macfarlanes. As debuts go (first public performance too!), this was right up there with the best of them. Lead singer James Wilkes grew at least a foot taller during the set - we think he is still smiling even now......... Some brave songs in there too! Their guitarist manged the fret work on Santana's Smooth like, well, had you shut your eyes Carlos himself could have been in the room.
Final band on the night was The Penn from Penningtons Manches. They'd been pipped at the post before, but they brought their A game on Thursday. A bit of Justin T, a bit of Robbie, with a smattering of Bieber with some Suede and Muse thrown in for good measure (not to mention confessing they believe in a thing called love), left the population of the The 100 Club with an intoxicating cocktail that the judges and the crowd drank willingly. Victory was theirs but by the closest (ever we think) of margins!
The poignant moment of the night was when the Dirty Sherlocks played their last song, Don't Look Back In Anger by Oasis, and the whole club sung it in honour and memory of all those affected by the atrocities in Manchester earlier in the week. Simply wonderful reaction by everyone in the venue.
We were honoured to have three excellent judges on the night; Mark Dodson (who has produced and managed more world class bands than we can fit in here), Pascal Bideau (who is a world renowned composer scoring and producing for feature films) and Barry Vickery who is one of our lovely sponsors for this year at InfoTrack.
Huge thanks to our bands, the judges, and again to our generous sponsors InfoTrack, together the people that make it all happen.
Great night.
Great music.
Great venue.
Great causes.
Law Rocks.
