MY GIRL FRIDAY – LIVE PERFORMANCE, DB HOTEL AND CASINOSaturday 19, October 2013
The band members of ‘My Girl Friday’ step out onto the small stage area of the DB Hotel and Casino, it’s rare that bands perform in this venue anymore, it’s been an awfully long time since there has been live music here. Instead they appear to prefer to rely on a sound system to entertain their crowds. But tonight, on a rare occasion, the stage has a live band occupying it and that is the babies of the music industry, ‘My Girl Friday’. Their debut single is only one week old and they are still pretty much a complete unknown, but tonight is an opportunity to find some fans. It’s a hype show by every definition of the word, as the band are currently hard at work writing and recording their debut album, this is a great opportunity to test-out some of their songs in the live environment and see what sort of reaction that there songs can get, the hope is that it will be very positive, but the DB isn’t exactly you’re quiet and calm venue, it’s a venue with a history and heritage in the music scene, of course it’s not quite got the same reputation as it once had, but nevertheless, it can play a very big part in the careers of any new band that are starting out.
The five piece rock band assemble into position on the small staging area, drummer Charlie Costello counts the band in and the three guitarists Austin, Zach and Joel dive straight into the emo influenced opening number and debut single from the band, a track about suicide called ‘Mayday Awaits’. The opening vocals are sung by the male voice of ‘Austin Bowen’, a recurring theme for the band is to have a trade-off between ‘Austin’ and ‘Amelia’, perhaps enough difference to quickly set aside any likely comparisons with Riot! In The Boulevard. The male vocals are strong but the main powerhouse of the band is Amelia, her aggressive and powerful vocals are where the band shines most but the band as a whole certainly appear to be very tight when it comes to playing together, both drummer Charlie and bassist Zach don’t miss a beat throughout the entire set, the two guitarists Austin and Joel have a little more freedom however, and are given quite a few opportunities to really shine, they have energy too, as Joel jumps in the air, moves around the stage quite often and interacts with those at the front of the stage, it provides an energetic atmosphere and takes some of the pressure away from the two singers at times. But both Austin and Amelia are still able to step up to the plate, Amelia in particular enjoys interacting with the audience, pointing and reaching out her hand for those closest to the stage. She also takes the time to get the crowd into things, encouraging anthemic sing-along choruses and call and response moments throughout their performances.
After the quite dark themes of the opening song ‘Mayday Awaits’, it seems like ‘My Girl Friday’ show their true pop-punk roots throughout the rest of the performance, they seem very capable when it comes to the energy and catchy choruses, songs that will relate to what you’d imagine would be a pretty young fanbase that they will attract in time. The second track is called ‘This Heart Beats Only For You’ and begins with the lines
“Don’t leave me alone tonight, because I can’t face another night staring into the abyss/I can’t even stand being in my own company/I’m not a nice person to be around/Everybody knows that I’m flawed, up from the ground” It doesn’t feature a stand-out chorus as such but it’s energetic and heartfelt, with the entire song sung by Amelia alone.
The next track that the band dive straight into is called ‘Hope You’re Happy’, a predictable song about the fall-out of a break-up and how both people keep bumping into each other because, it’s clichéd and it’s message is that everything is okay now, I’m happy and I hope you are too. It’s the sort of song that is quite simple and easy to come up with, there are the occasional good points to it, but overall it’s nothing uniquely special, perhaps one that could be left off of the debut album, but only time will tell.
The band then follow up with ‘Bless Your Beautiful Heart’, again it’s not something that is going to take the world by storm, but it’s a solid track, the high point in the song is the trade-off in vocals between both Amelia and Austin. It has a quite catchy chorus that the audience that they attract will certainly enjoy and sing along to in full voice, it’s very simple though,
“I can feel it, this is the start/Butterflies fluttering/Bless your beautiful heart/I can feel it, this is the start/God bless you/God bless your beautiful heart.” if the instrumentation wasn’t as upbeat and energetic then this could be a very poor song, but instead with the energetic and upbeat guitar and drums combination, it helps to make this song better than it actually is. The band would have to step up their game however if they were to make a real impact on the industry because as of now, the songs appear to be good but not quite good enough.
A change of pace now as the band perform a cover, they dive into a very down-and-dirty punk sound as the guitars a quick and powerful and the drums are heavy and very fast-paced. Once more though, it’s just Amelia who takes the sole vocal duties on a cover of The Runaways ‘Cherry Bomb’, Amelia’s aggressive vocal style suits this song perfectly as she fires out the songs attitude-laden lyrics,
“Can’t stay at home, can’t stay at school/Old folks say, ya poor little fool/Down the street I’m the girl next door/I’m the fox you’ve been waiting for.” and while they’re powering through the song, you can’t help but think that if they can write a couple of songs in this style then they could become something special. It fits Amelia’s vocal style and the bands pop-punk roots perfectly and the crowd are loving every second of this track in particular as Amelia continues to fire out classic lines,
“Hey street boy, what’s your style/Your dead end dreams don’t make you smile/I’ll give ya something to live for/Have ya, grab ya til you’re sore.” and of course the chorus,
“Hello daddy, hello Mom/I’m your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb/Hello world, I’m your wild girl/I’m your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb.” and it gives a better impression of the band.
They do however prove that they can really hit the mark with their own music when they rip through the final song, ‘Broken (Not Beyond Repair)’. It’s heartfelt lyrics have an aggressive undertone, provided by the strong musicianship of the band as a whole, the drumming is uproariously triumphant in this final track and Amelia and Austin share vocals again, if released as a single then this could be an instant high school anthem. The overall impression is that the band do need to figure out just where their strengths are from a songwriting point of view, as a unit they work extremely well together but the effort needs to turn to productivity, learning which songs to throw away and which songs to keep, they have a couple of really strong tracks in their armour and hopefully more that we didn’t get to hear, but they also have a couple of average songs too and if you’re too make your mark in the industry then you can’t just settle for average songs.
So the impression is generally quite good, with improvement in the songwriting department then they could become very good, one of the top acts around. They’ve proven their strengths particularly with the cover of ‘Cherry Bomb’ and if they can write a couple of songs in that style, tracks full of attitude then they have a bright future, if they settle for simple high school anthems then they could struggle to hold their own in the industry.
SETLIST;1. Mayday Awaits
2. This Heart Beats Only For You
3. Hope You’re Happy
4. Bless Your Beautiful Heart
5. Cherry Bomb (The Runaways Cover)
6. Broken (Not Beyond Repair)
