The Great Gig

Not A great gig, but The Great Gig, as modestly titled. Not one of my usual gigs. This was a school concert as I would style it, but not as I would think of as a school concert - kids valiantly trying to scratch a tune out of a violin. 

This was young Luka's school's rock gig, an impressively professional affair. But rather more importantly a quite joyous affair. While I recall school concerts as something one attended out of duty, this was clearly something that both performers and audience alike loved. The sheer enthusiasm was something to behold.

The set up was that the hall was full of the kids bopping away and having a great time, while the parents (plus me) were all sat at the back - hence slightly ropy photos as taken from a fair distance. I was concerned at looking rather seedy taking photos with my superzoom lens, but then as was pointed out to me, someone in the next row was using binoculars!

So I turned up with Luka's mother with the concert already started.  So we had to go round a bit to get seats and as soon as we did, to our mutual surprise, I found myself sat next to one of my former work colleagues whose son was also performing. So I spent much of the evening chatting to him, which was an unexpected pleasure.

Anyway, I should perhaps at least mention the performances. The format was a series of acts, almost all groups but a small number of soloists, of varying standards. It included one very confident and I assume very good rapper (he said he had an album coming out) with a lot of more standard rock bands - guitar and drums basically. One theme did seem to be having female singers with largely (but by no means exclusively) boys playing instruments - like below as exhibit A

Below was my ex-colleague's son's band - with the role reversal of a lad as vocalist and one female guitarist, as well Ashley's son on bass.

Now the other theme of the evening (just to show I am not just going to gush over how wonderful these youngsters all are) was some phenomenally awful vocals. Frankly some of these kids should get the Victoria Cross for bravery belting out these songs with such terribly flat voices! And I do genuinely admire their confidence (and of course the punk era of my schooldays was marked by youths with little vocal (and sometimes musical) talent getting up on stage and doing what they wanted to do). 

There were of course exceptions and the girl in the last group just had a stunningly good voice that almost took the breath away, if only in surprise.

But of course what I had really come to see and hear was Luka's band. And I was not disappointed. It was interesting having seen him last year just how much more stage presence he had - mostly I guess the confidence that another year of being a teenager can engender. But he and his fellow guitarist (whose father was once my MP - a small world) were really terrific, and Louis on drums (who I have met before ) is also very capable. And their female lead singer was one of the better ones over the night, certainly with a voice that did not detract from the quality of the musicianship unlike some of the other bands. Anyway, here are the photos I got (culling a lot of blurred images - very difficult to capture at distance with low lighting - a rather hit and miss affair involving taking a lot and hoping to catch a brief second when the subjects are not moving!). Anyway, the sheer volume of photos here are mainly for Luka's benefit if he (or his mum) want to copy some.

Luka and Louis

Noah, also seriously decent guitarist

I have to say Luka did look ridiculously cool, for a lad wearing his girlfriend's crop top! No idea why that was the costume of choice. Product placement?

But a shout out on that score to the following act - a bunch of lads in pyjamas who neatly mixed things up by having no band and just singing (and looking cool and enjoying themselves).