The sequel to my City Showcase blog should be considerably shorter. Having spent the whole of Thursday taking pictures I was asked to take photos at The Borderline on Friday night. I arrived early to capture some of the set-up process and a few ‘product placement’ shots for the sponsors. The brief was an interesting challenge. It was stressed that my photos should include as much City Showcase branding as possible. I was also asked to take photos of the bands with the sponsors’ products… I was so relieved by the bands’ willingness to pose for these product placement pictures.

Here’s a quick run-down of the bands that played.

The Sea

You don’t see two piece bands all that often; one drummer and one guitarist/singer/keyboardist. Keeping it simple makes The Sea incredibly good at what they do. The guitar driven songs were almost psychedelic, yet focussed. When the front-man moved to the keyboard I found that we were listening to an entirely different band. They played a new song which was a real piano-pop tune with plenty of hook and radio-friendly appeal. Although I preferred their rocking tunes more, the lone pop-song really stood out, it could be the huge hit they hate playing in years to come.

Telegraphs

Telegraphs look like a band, it’s like someone cut them out of the “being a rock band handbook” and dropped them off at the borderline. They had a great stage presence and played a very tight set. I didn’t feel like I’d rush out and buy an album after the show but but having listened to their recorded stuff since then, they’ve definitely grown on me.

Hunting the Minotaur

You can’t blame me for being skeptical when a band gets on stage with a keytar and plays cheesy pop songs to tune up. Hunting the Minotaur blew me away! They were really really really good. The singer’s on-stage banter was awkward but it seemed more like intentional sarcasm than nerves. This is a young group of guys who don’t take themselves too seriously, but they don’t need to when their music is that good. After their set Ian Camfield from XFM asked for a copy of their new EP, so they asked him for £3… I still think Ian should have paid them. I’m really looking forward to the future of this band.

Swound!

The headline act gave the impression that they’ve been doing this for some time. I’m not sure how long Swound! has been around, but they are very professional. The band clearly has some heavy influences and I’m sure they’d like to be a hardcore punk band, but they’re actually very polished and borderline pop-punk. They’re great entertainers and certainly know how to put on a show. They were playing the Radio One’s Big Weekend the following day, so everything they do is obviously paying off. Swound! (I was told the exclamation mark is important)  are a great bunch of guys so I hope they’ll have plenty of success.

The two days I spent taking photos for City Showcase was really exhausting but so rewarding. I didn’t make any life-changing contacts but after 3 months in London I finally felt like I was contributing to the local music scene.