The Plant: Live N Dirty

The lights are low, the music’s loud and the smell of sweat, beer and cigarettes is in the air. Welcome to LiveNDirty’s battle of the bands finals, hosted at Plaza Theater on St Hubert Street. After playing three rounds the final seven bands battle it out for a chance to record at Piccolo Studios.

Each of the seven bands had a unique sound which made this show all the more interesting.

“Our sound is some kind of Blues with lots of rock. The main name is rock and boom,” said David, Alex and Frank, the members of the band The In and Outs.

“We’d describe ourselves as rock mixed with punk with some pop aspects, a bit of everything,” said Brendan Lucas the lead singer of Wake Up Call.

Plaza Theater can hold 400 people according to their website. There were probably only about 150 people there which is usually the case with these type of shows.

The crowd was mostly people between the ages of 25-50 who are friends and family members of the band.

“I’m here because my boyfriend is playing in the band Back On Earth,” said Sandra.

“Mark is my boy,” said Mitch Brown referring to the bassist in Wake Up Call.

It’s nice to see so much support from family and friends however this kind of audience is the kind that rather sit on a stool and sip their beer then start a mosh pit and dance like crazy.

This makes for a relaxing environment but one that can get some what boring for the younger members of the audience. However the saving grace here is the talent was unbelievable.

Some shows that involve young up and coming bands leave you wondering if the singers ever sung before and if the band even knows what there doing.

But at this show every band nailed it and they know it.

“As a musician you know when you do a good show and we feel like we nailed it,” said Dre Barone the drummer for the band Juliette.

Its no wonder that tonight’s show proves to be one of the best.

“Obviously this show was great because of the venue,” said David of The In and Outs.

“This [show] right here, this one was amazing. Our best so far,” said Nick Gervasi, the guitarist of Juliette.

Even the audience seems to agree.

“This is definitely one of the best shows I’ve seen. The sound quality was really good,” said Jesse Monette.

Alex, one of the organizers has been with LiveNDirty for two years.

“I’ve organized about 50-60 shows,” said Alex.

“The one piece of advice I’d give to up coming bands is it’s about the image.”

Although each band has a great reason for why they deserve to win only one band can reign supreme

“We’re the youngest band in this competition so it would be a great underdog story,” said Mark Chung from Wake Up Call.

“We deserve to win because we’ve got soul, we’re a small band with big soul,” said Gervasi.

At around 1:30am the last band was finished and the three organizers were about to announce the winner.

Even though the crowd had thinned by then everyone who was there cheered as loud as they could for the band they wanted to win.

The energy in the room was really intense and after thanking everyone who participated and making a few jokes, the three organizers announced that Back on Earth is the winner of this years LiveNDirty competition.

It’s not hard to tell why. They’re rock/metal music was performed flawlessly and the singers deep voice compliments this kind of sound. They put on a great show and they have a lot of fans.

After the band collected the prize and gets off the stage many of the audience members swarmed the band congratulating them with cheers and hugs.

“It feels very good to win,” said Mathieu Lalande, the drummer.

It’s unbelievable it’s happening too fast I didn’t expect to be here. It’s a dream come true, a little dream but still,” said Yan Laramé the lead singer.


For more information on LiveNDirty shows visit http://www.myspace.com/livendirty