The Rock Show: The Aftermath
Man, that was amazing.
My shoulder hurts from videotaping two hours of rock (I’m not strong enough to hold a camera in that upright position without some strain).
School of Rock went on first, and it’s just amazing what a sense of Putting On A Show these people have.
“Story of My Life,” the Social Distortion song, led off the set. Alex, who is a cool kid I knew from last quarter’s DAVE class, sang the lead on that. But an extra touch that I think totally makes that song is that Sara and Tati come onstage to sing backup in the chorus. That whole song just sends a message of “We are School of Rock, we know what we’re doing way more than we should at this point in our rock careers, so just do what you’re supposed to do and be awestruck.”
These aren’t kids nervously stumbling through cover songs. These are proud, confident, almost cocky like a good rock band should be, owning the stage. It was just awesome.
Another lineup did “You Really Got Me,” more in the style of Van Halen (with a long – but amazing – guitar solo), but Stephen, who I’ll get to know in DAVE 2 this quarter, sings in more of a sensitive Ray Davies style, so it’s somewhere in between The Kinks and Van Halen. I was shooting pretty much straight out from Stephen, and during part of the song I shot a close-up on him with the drummer in the background. The crowd is going nuts, and you can just see his confidence growing from the expression on his face.
Sara and Tati and Stephen took the stage for two songs, “Float On” and a Blink 182 song. I told them, and maybe it came out wrong, that I hate Blink 182, but when I hear that song, it makes me think of their band and I actually enjoy listening to it now. Sara and Tati both put out this completely effortless vibe of “Yeah, we are just that cool” while they’re on stage – so calm and cool, looking totally comfortable, a bit of a sway with the music, but with tons of rock star poise. I can’t wait to go see their band play years in the future, because they are going to be awesome.
I felt bad for the headlining group – Stephen couldn’t remember their name so he referred to them as “The Green Day band.” It’s essentially what they are, but they’re very good at it. These guys have so much stage presence down – controlling the crowd, doing rock god guitar solo poses – and I think they’re on the early side of middle school.
It’s just so fascinating to see people so young who are so motivated and so good. Tons of credit go to Nick and Craig for teaching these kids, but I’m sure they’ll admit there’s only so much you can teach people – at some point, they have to want it, and that’s where they’re going to either succeed or fail. You get the impression from each one of these kids that they all want it.
This is getting too long, but Good with Guns played short a member and JV Allstars closed out the night, and I’m no modern punk fan by any stretch of the imagination, but these guys put on a fantastic show. Just an all-around awesome night.
Three cameras shot the whole thing, and the audio was recorded off the soundboard. So…hopefully the DVD will be out soon?