REdWIRE VS Major Cities

By: Goo
Written: 1-15-05

Last night I had the opportunity to see Redwire live in concert for the first time in over a year. It has been way too long.

Needless to say, they put on an excellent show. They added a new drummer since the last time I had seen them, and I think their sound has changed for the heavier... and it has definitely been a good change. And, they were super tight... everything was just about perfect.

But that’s not what I’m going to write about. The concert in question was called something like “The Vox Openers Battle of the Bands.” So basically it was a competition, each band had a half an hour set, they all had to perform a cover, and their was a judges score, a crowd involvement rating, a stage presence rating, and then like a screaming crowd vote type thing at the end.

Only 2 of the four bands had a chance at winning. Redwire, of course, and Major Cities.

Not to ruin the ending or anything, but Redwire ended up getting a ridiculous second to Major Cities. And I was torqued.

To start, Redwire had to open the concert and Major Cities played last. In the world of music, going first is not a compliment, its an insult. The best slot is played by the headlining band, and is usually the last slot unless the concert is slated to last really really late... and then it might not be. But seeing as this was a battle of the bands, there should have been no headliner. But it was easy to see who was favored, because Major Cities got the last slot. At least that’s my take on the matter. So that was not cool.

Lets do a quick comparison of how Redwire and Major Cities compared in everything except the judges score:

Stage presence:
Redwire dominated! They had more energy on that stage than I have seen from them ever. (But of course that’s out of date.) The new drummer was rocking like crazy and he had mad skills in pretty much everyway (complete with stick-twirling/spinning skills).... Nick laid belted out the voclas with ease, and got in quite a bit of headbanging. Dan nailed his backwards guitar swing perfect. First time I’ve seen him get it.
Major Cities: They didn’t move hardly at all. Except for Ryan Jasurda rocking. By rocking I don't mean thrashing and jumping and screaming and headbanging, I mean rocking like you would in a rocking chair... only standing up. And they’re drummer is pretty crap. But that might not be his fault, because they’re music is pretty much crap. They complained about not having this or that in their monitors.... and that Jasurda person had the oddballest remarks ever... weirdo.

Crowd Involvement:
For Redwire, they had the most people of anyone band standing for the longest, I think. And they had me and Earl headbanging like crazy (along with a couple of others for a tad bit.)
As far as Major Cities go, they had several people just standing their.

The Crowd-Scream Vote:
It was so close that they had to do it 2x between Redwire and Major Cities. And that only mad like a 1 pt. difference, but who knows how much one point means.

So basically the Judges just had to have favored Major Cities for them to win at all. How Lame!

Earl and I were pretty pissed, Redwire should have won that by miles. I tried, I really did. But to make them feel better, I’ll post some linkys right here:

Redwire’s Myspace
Redwire's Purvolume Site

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