With its second year in our nation’s capital, the EMERGENZA Festival has definitely reached a new level. The word got out to the local music community, and spread like wildfire, that the Velvet Lounge was the place to go to see premier local acts bless the stage. On Saturday night in particular, we had almost as many EMERGENZA bands in the audience as we had fans of the EMERGENZA bands on stage. Combine those two groups, and put them in a room the size of a small studio apartment, and you end up with a weekend to remember. Thursday night started out with ACOUSTIC MACHINE’s very first gig. What they didn’t tell anybody was that they’re classically trained musicians with over 100 years combined experience under their belts. MATT GRABOSKI put a lively spin on the traditional acoustic 3 piece, and MOTIVE had a super polished sound that’s destined for the radio. RESTORING POETRY IN MUSIC had one of the most creative live shows of the weekend. Using traditional instruments in untraditional ways drew the crowd into their world of conscious hip-hop. SUBVERSIVE & THE REVOLUTION THEORY came through with an awesome driving rock sound, and NIMAT took an R&B group, threw in a guitar, and had the crowd groovin’ for 25 minutes straight. Returning veterans THE DREAMSCAPES PROJECT played Friday night to a crowd of over 85 fans. You’d be hard pressed to find a band with a more dedicated fan base than this cello-infused, acoustic fronted musical machine. They ended their set with a literally floor-shaking version of Soul Coughing’s classic “Super Bon-Bon.” SOUTHPAW came strong with their take on Rap/Rock fusion, and made sure that anybody in the crowd who wanted to pigeonhole them into just another flash-in-the-pan genre blender had another think coming. Although their original idea of a TV-laden stage didn’t make it through to fruition, PRE-PACKAGED PRODUCTS turned the VELVET LOUNGE upside down with their amazing stage presence and unorthodox style. BLACK GUN BARRELS, LOWER, and SIREN rounded out the 2nd night of EMERGENZA 2005 in DC. ECHO started off Saturday night with the largest crowd of the weekend. Just under 140 people squeezed in to see some true professionals take the stage. As the pickless guitar solos wailed, the crowd knew they were in for an amazing night. AFI, backed by 3 amazing vocalists, brought down the house with her soulful voice, and OFFICIAL rocked the pants off of everyone in the crowd. Local vets SOLDIERS OF JAH ARMY impressed as always, with their traditional roots reggae sound, and THE PAPAS UNDERGROUND added some latin flavor to this snowy January evening. SABLE gave it their all on stage, proving once again that age ain’t nothin’ but a number. The final night of EMERGENZA 1st weekend in DC highlighted the principals that the festival was founded on... we’re all in this together. Due to the overwhelming response of the other bands in the audience RUDE BUDDHA tied with FATBACK, and instead of pushing 3 bands on to the 2nd round, we pushed 4!!! TRUE BELIEVERS had the dance hall thing down, and BLOODSHOT showed us all that EMERGENZA not just about rock music, the Hip-Hoppers bring the fire too. Even with a little snow on the ground, the 1st weekend in DC went off without a hitch. The response was so great this year that we had to add a whole new weekend. It’s just gonna keep getting better and better, so mark your calendars for February 24th-28th.