By Lydia Melby, Arts Editor
ACU’s own favorite punk rock band, Swing The Lead, battled it out last Saturday night with eight other Texas bands to see which could muster the most fans and win the grand prize. Although Swing The Lead did not go home with the grand prize, the band played superbly and took full advantage of the opportunity to show off its stuff.
Even amid set-up chaos and pre-performance nerves, Stephen Munoz, junior business major from Escondido, Calif., said he and the other band members were “totally excited and ready to perform” and had practiced every day for the last few weeks.
“Now it just depends on how many of our fans show, but I think it’s gonna be a decent turnout,” Munoz said.
Decent turnout it was. The members of Swing The Lead, who began performing around Abilene only last fall, were expecting about 30 people to show, which for a new band performing out of town is a pretty OK number. However, at least 45 friends and fans made the drive to Dallas to support the band.
Four days later, Munoz still is riding the highs of a good time and a great performance.
“I thought we played really well, and we all had a lot of fun,” Munoz said. “There were a lot of people there, and I thought it went great. There were a lot of other good bands playing, and we really had a good time, so yeah, it was fun.”
The eight bands that competed had already performed in a preliminary round. The majority of the bands were heavy-metal inspired and tended to scream and roar incoherently a good deal, though one, Altair, sounded less amateur than the rest. Coincidentally, this is the band that brought the most fans and also received the grand prize.
Despite the prevalence of metal bands, The Door competition also offered some diverse genre picks. The opening band, Because I Love You, was a pop/punk-styled band that featured wildly energetic music paired with bright, bouncy lyrics, and got the crowd energized and ready for a deafening night of driving beats.
Two others that stuck out from the metal crowd was a high school-aged reggae band, The Regs, which mixed alternative rock rhythms with fun reggae-style lyrics, beats and an incongruous Jamaican accent from the lead singer. The band that played seventh was a bit too much like a Red Hot Chili Peppers’ cover band, in sound and name. Although its lead guitarist played remarkably well, it was not enough to cover for the weak vocals of its lead singer.
Swing The Lead played fourth, after the fun but unremarkable reggae band, and quickly energized the crowd with its opening song, Kids from the Underground. The band members followed with the smug anthem I Won’t Be There and Connie and Gee. After a terrific performance of the rousing Welcome to the World We Live In, Swing The Lead finished with what is arguably its best song, the cocky, driving Your Boat Shoes Got Nothing on Me, even getting the fans in the audience to sing along.
Munoz said he felt the night was a success, despite the fact Altair was pronounced the winner.
“I talked to a lot of people in the audience afterwards; a lot of people said they really liked us, and we got a lot of new MySpace friends, and the next few days after, we’ve gotten over a hundred or so plays,” Munoz said. “We sold five T-shirts for 10 bucks each and a few of our three song EPs.”
An opportunity like this, to play in what Munoz called “a pretty legit venue,” is a great chance, especially for a student band. Swing The Lead played, in my opinion, its best performance yet, made a slew of new fans and probably converted a few metal-heads.
