Four City’s, 105 bands whittled down to the Cream Of The Crop. 23 bands now ready for the final showdown at Portsmouth’s nationally renowned Wedgewood Rooms. Here we are in June at the end of what can only be described as a very successful season for Emergenza in the South of England. Looking back to January when the Emergenza event kicked off in Southampton, I had great expectations (with a slight naivety) to the coming season and the smell of live music venues. (It’s the smell! ‘Agent Smith’ stylie...) Together, my Emergenza entourage and I have witnessed some amazing bands over the last six months and withstood entire evenings of bands that, lets just say, weren’t so amazing. But hey, that’s what this event is all about. Not one band is discriminated against. Whatever style, genre, or ability it doesn’t matter, they all get the chance to play with top of the line equipment in their city’s best live music venues, of which by the way, wouldn’t necessarily book them to play but if it wasn’t for this event… In Bournemouth for example, the venue of choice for the semi final leg of the event was to be The Villa, a venue that bands have a hard time in getting bookings at. So in true Emergenza style, I pulled out all the stops to secure this venue for the Bournemouth bands. After two nights of great music and a great sound at The Villa, the bands progressing through to the regional final were; Farther, with their subtle blend of ‘Acoustic Indie Rock’. Hometown Hi-Fi, this band has a massive wall of sound, which I can only describe as ‘BIG Electronic Rock’, then The Dirt, whose ACDC’esque, ‘Trad Rock’ sounds pummelled the audience into submission to vote them through. And finally the highlight of Bournemouth for me, Dallah, which for a band so young… can play the blues just like they’re ringing a bell… Moving on to Brighton. This City absolutely lived up to it’s expectations, not in so much as how many bands took part, but the fact that out of such a small amount of enrolments the quality and standard was very high indeed. It truly was quality not quantity. I can’t wait to go back next year and see what else this City has to offer… We took the semi final for Brighton back to The Pressure Point after being treated so well there in the first rounds. This venue has a truly great sound, owed entirely I’m sure to Ali the sound guy, who is fantastic. Shock horror, he’s also a great bloke. (Which is hard to find in sound engineers these days). Due to the small number of bands taking part in Brighton, I condensed the semi final into a bank holiday special, a Sunday marathon of bands if you will. Only four bands were supposed to progress to the final but due to a tie of votes for the fourth place position, and combined with the quality of the bands, quite frankly I couldn’t justify leaving anyone behind, so I carried an extra band through. I’m sure all at the final will see why, when these bands take to the stage. So, progressing to the final from Brighton are; DaCapo, very similar in style to the ‘Acoustic Indie Rock’ of Farther (Bournemouth), this band won the semi final proceedings with a considerable margin. Undertow will be providing a welcome burst of ‘HEAVY Melodic Metal’ and I’m looking forward to seeing these guys again. Then we have the delicate rock of Silvermaker, although they tend to describe themselves as ‘Indie Brit Rock’ there’s a lot more to them than the description implies. We also have The Trick, with they’re big grooves fused with ‘trashy rock’. These guys make for a visually entertaining band. And finally we have Ripchord, who I can now confess to being one of my favourites. Although, it can be argued they have yet more to do with they’re stage craft, the songs are MASSIVE, strong, full of dynamics with big choruses and just waiting to be put out to the masses. But at the end of the day, it’s all down to the judges now, so lets see if they agree with me… Portsmo