Monday, May 9th, 2011

And the final act…going through…to the Live and Unsigned….Grand Fi – Oh for *%~$’s sake get on with it, Man Utd are playing Chelsea in 20 minutes, just say it!

It was us by the way. In case you were wondering. Or you haven’t been on twitter, facebook or generally been in the north of England. Because I don’t know about the other guys in the band but I’ve been telling everyone I see that we’re going to be in the Live & Unsigned Grand Final at the O2 Arena in London on 23rd July! Indeed the excitement was so much for me I managed to tweet out that we’re in the Grabs Final, but I can assure all of those worried, that it definitely is the Grand Final.

Can’t really believe it to be honest. Something like 10,000 bands, artists and musicians entered this competition and we’re in the final. And for us, we’ve seen a Regional and Area final and now we just want to enjoy ourselves on the stage down in London. Yeah, yeah, it’d be great if we won, that can’t be stressed enough, but for us it’s the experiences we’ve had. It’s a tough ask to perform for a small amount of time and make an impression. I think if we’re brutally honest we still feel that we could have been better but the O2 is where we wanted to be and now we’re gonna be there we’ll just go out and enjoy ourselves. We’ve met some brilliant bands along the way, Dan Audio and Dukes of Bevington (sorry if it’s spelt wrong lads) are two fantastic bands who didn’t make it through, both bands a great set of people and musicians. Seeing brilliant acts not make it through has underlined to us just how lucky we are to be given this opportunity.

It’s not X-Factor. Yeah I know, no, no it’s definitely NOT X-Factor, he says as he calls 3 acts on to the stage to be put to the audience vote. No, it’s not X-Factor, I’d like to think this competition is about real musicians and performers, showing that people need to have good marketing skills, be able to stick to a set task, show good showmanship (is there enough shows in that?) and, most importantly, have the rub of the green if you want to be a successful performer in the music business.

I’d just like to say how fantastic David Sudall on Drums, Jamie Moore on Bass and Dave Levi on Keyboards are in general. There’s generally an awkward silence when people ask the name of the band and we reply Tom Gee. Some people don’t know how to take it. It might be my name we work under but these guys are just as big a part of this band as I am and they deserve all the credit I’m sure they’ll get. I asked Dave Levi what his favourite part of yesterday was. He paused and considered for a moment, “Well we got through, that’s good, plus the guy on the sound desk kept playing Rosanna by Toto in between sound checks and when we were waiting around. Love that song.” Really gives scope to the emotion and magnitude of the occasion doesn’t it?

So there we have it. Thank you to everyone that voted us through, thank you to all our fans who travelled to see us and thanks to the judges who were mental enough to put us through.

Summer’s going to be a bit boring isn’t it? The Get Out of Bed Tour around the UK & Ireland with Nigel Passey, get back, recuperate, rehearse, go to London, play to 2000 people as part of Live Fest.

Can not wait.

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