The contest started earlier than announced on the poster, irritating since G. was coming with his girlfriend and hadn’t arrived yet and wasn’t the only one. But Bonny B. had someone pull paper slips from his hand for the starting order and was ready to roll, with guess who first in line…
There are advantages in playing first, the obvious one being you’re the leading reference the jury gets so if you do good, all the better. Especially when, as it was the case here, the jury had 5 criteria to judge by putting notes from 0 to 10. Stage presence, originality, sound, energy and nuance. I didn’t look at the scores so don’t really know but I can imagine we did well on sound and energy and possibly originality although that’s kind of a far fetched notion in today’s blues… I would have preferred: Fun!
Either way it’s all pretty subjective and depends on what music you like to hear. As this blog’s regulars have certainly already figured out my heart goes to acoustic, roots, country, folk, ragtime, good time & lonesome blues and if it has to be electric: I need energy, lots of it!
So the Chicago blues style that was obligatory for at least one of the two songs to play in accordance to the contest rules, is a mixed bag for me. Not my favorite blues for sure but I can really enjoy it if the energy is right, if not I tend to quickly begin thinking that I’d be a lot better off somewhere else…
I could go on and on here, how the whole idea of a blues contest is debatable, how as a judge – which I once was in another life and scene – you often start to regret the first numbers you put down as you start to juggle with them in an attempt to make them sum up your own personal order of preference, how the numbers themselves kind of lose their meaning when you see – or in this case hear – something you really don’t care for but that – you have to admit – has lots of energy/presence/nuance and sound…
So it’s not really surprising, although it is pretty unprofessional, that at the end of it all the jury announced that they were unhappy with how the numbers added up and were going to debate in private about what to do… Fortunately for all they declared some 20 or so minutes later that the sum of the points would determine the winner; because if you think about it, that’s the only way it can be.
And so: the winner is the Dirty Sound Magnets! Congrats, guys! ;-)
The had worked on a Robert Johnson tune and turned it into something totally different that had some really nice guitar riffs that I would have liked them to push further. But still, it’s a cool thing that the contest has promoted a young group that isn’t just covering old Chicago blues standards. The Blues? It’s everywhere, really!
Hopefully there will be a video of us to post by the end of the week.
(picture by Bonny B.)
Le Blues Club Fribourg