The Gentlemen’s Musical Emporium impressed to clinch the first heat of Amber in Douglas’ battle of the bands competion.
Runner up Teresa McNulty and her band also go through to November 30’s final, with two more acts set to join them from this Saturday’s second heat.
Competition organiser and compere for the evening Steve Leach reported: ‘Saturday was really good, the bar was pretty damn busy. Points-wise it was really close, there wasn’t much in it.
‘The Gentlemen’s Musical Emporium were certainly very entertaining, they just had that certain something about them.’
Just missing out were rockers 8-Bit Empire, the acoustic arm of 3 Million, and singer songwriter Stephen Smart.
With such a varied line-up to measure against each other, Steve acknowledged that there is no like for like comparison between the performance of a five-piece theatrical rock’n’roll act like the Gentleman and a solo acoustic set like Stephen Smart, and the judges’ scoring criteria allowed for that.
In this year’s competition each act has a healthy helping of 30-45 minutes, which helps them hit their stride.
‘Rather than trying to rush them on and get them off, we’ve tried to make it a bit more like a gig for the acts,’ said Steve, who was impressed by Miss Mcnulty’s new act.
‘She’s with a band and it was really, really good,’ he said. ‘People were surprised – in a nice way –I’d only heard her acoustic before.’
Looking to this weekend, Jester’s Dead have had to pull out leaving Nine Bar Gypsies, Deady Long Legs, Dr Q and the Evil Empire and Your Gold Teeth to contest the evening
‘I can’t call it at all,’ said Steve. ‘They’re all good at what they do, and Deady Long Legs are a new band, which will be quite cool to see.’
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The Manx Sound Exchange is Lee Brooks’ ramblings on the rumblings of the island’s music scene and appears each week in the Manx Independent. Help support the scene by emailing lee.brooks@newsiom.co.im or calling 695674 with Manx music news, reviews and photos
