On the 4th November in the Kyiv club "Bingo" the
final tour of the contest "The Global Battle Of The Bands-2007" in
Ukraine took place.
15 bands participated in this competition.
Nine of them passed through three regional selections in Odessa,
Uzhgorod and Kyiv. Beside absolute debutants, in this "non-format
project" there were victory battle-hardened bands of GBOB (which have
made their way through GBOB thanks to their high positions in 2006 year
contest). By the way, the experience was victorious. Team-work and
clear self-identification are important in extreme and most creative
music.
The finalists of 2007 competition were the following
bands: "Merva"(Rivno-Kyiv), O.Torvald (Poltava-Kyiv), Infinite Tales
(Kyiv), SHEcRIES (Komsomolsk), Tango Tempo (Uzhgorod), Buzz-monster
(Kyiv), Hunting ground (Zaporozhye), the.Search (Simferopol), Bad Twins
(Kyiv), "ANNA"(Lviv), "Contraband.com.ua" (Kyiv), "Bes Golovi"(Odessa),
"AtmAsfera" (Lviv - Kyiv), MaybePapa (Odessa).
This time there was
so much drive, much of heavy and very heavy music. But sometimes
performance merged into complete trash- and hard-core mess, and bands
seemed similar and vague. Besides, alas, as usual you could hear masked
(or not) quoting of well-known bands. It looked more like session of
thematic music, and not like a contest, where originality and even some
kind of stylistic elegancy were the most appreciated criterions. We can
take "Yanka Kozyr's orchestra" for instance. Against that background of
corporative "heavy style" the songs of band "Merva" with its ethnic
motives sounded unique and interesting.
The strong vocal, clear lyrics, hit music - and
Crimean the.Search has already attracted attention to its songs. Rock
is a very simple kind of music, if you treat it simply. The Crimean
band besides won in the selection in Uzhorod which can tell much about
this band. They simply decided to "sing a song", unlike almost all the
other bands.
"Contraband.com.ua" showed the same level
characteristic to all the Ukrainian woman rock, specific and a little
bit dull music. However, this project is all-sufficient enough on the
Ukrainian market and doesn't need any external appreciation.
Kyiv-Lviv band "ANNA" (that won second place in
the last year's GBOB) showed, probably, the most professional level of
so called trash-part of the contest. Good team-work and musical ideas
added to the strong and adult (within the bounds of this format)
frontman's vocal. These guys lacked just a little bit for victory.
The most of the jury panel consisted of the
representatives of mass-media - Mila Kravchuk (the journalist of the
portal "Music.com.ua"), Anatoliy Binkovskiy "Nook" (the editor of the
portal Neformat.com.ua), "Ptitsa" (the journalist, the editor of the
magazine HZM), Yuriy Molchanov (the chief producer of the channel Enter
Music), Evgeniy Minko (the chief editor of the magazine "Telekritica")
and Alexander Stasov (the author and presenter of the radio programs
"Jam FM"). The procedure of selecting the winner was quite easy. Every
judge placed the best bands in his opinion from the first place up to
the fifth, setting the points from 2 to 10 accordingly. The winner must
be the band which had the highest number of points in total from all
the individual cards of the judges. Besides, among the judges there
were Oleg "White" Shevchenko (the sound producer and the owner of
WhiteStudio, the leader of the band White), Marina Kruglova (the
art-director of the international festival "CHAIKA"), Yuriy Hustochka
(the musician of the band "AEstheticEducation), Eduard Lozovoy (the
journalist of TV channel 1+1).
The "veteran" of the jury of this contest Eduard
Lozovoy, who is the permanent member of the Ukrainian final, shared his
impressions of GBOB with "TK":
"In comparison with the last year's selection, that took place in
Mukachevo, the level of this year is a little bit lower. There were no
battles among juries as there were last year. This time it was easy to
choose a favorite. The diligence and professionalism of the winners was
really impressive.
Someone wanted to win by the drive they
produced, but it's important to work on the vocal and good sound.
Taking in consideration not only tastes, but also the level of
professionalism, I'd choose five best bands. I see the bands which I
have been watching and they have already made a long way. Some of them
really made a progress, others - didn't. It was a little bit more
really heavy music, trash with hard-core, than the other. But I
wouldn't say that there was not a variety of styles, all the bands were
absolutely different from one another. For example, I paid attention to
the band from Odessa MaybePapa. It's so called "non-format of
non-formats". I wouldn't say they were the best, but they were very
unique. So I don't think I've wasted time today. First of all, I've
seen the bands I've been watching for a long time. Some of them made
their music heavier, others chose different way. But as you understand,
it's not London - everything is different there - audience, jury,
stage, it's hard to get lost there.
I didn't like that here were many songs in
English. In my opinion, it's maybe the right choice for London, but not
for here. "T.O.L." has won the fourth place in London with Ukrainian
song some time ago. But then it was not only about lyrics, but about
the crazy drive and frontman's charisma.
The band "Merva" wasn't very fortunate with
sortition - it's a worthy band, it's constantly making progress, but
they were the first to appear on the stage. They were not the only ones
who played ethno, but in general there was less music of this style
this year. I can't exactly say if it's well or not - it's hard to say.
The quantity doesn't always mean quality.
Right after "Yanka Kozyr's Ochestra"(2004),
"T.O.L."(2005) and Etwas Unders (2006) bands this year Ukraine will be
represented by the Lviv band "AtmAsfera" among 38 bands from all over
the world in London.
The music they played on the contest was really
different from all the other bands this evening. The instrumental music
- with flute, bongas, violin and other musical instruments - can hardly
be classified. It's some kind of mix of ethno, art-rock, some kind of
melodic dream for meditation… Their music is multi-ply, and everyone
can find some hidden words for himself in their songs, according to his
own tastes and knowledge. This music seems to have some incompleteness.
Probably, this fact has won the judges, because many bands on the
contest just were obvious in the style they played.
Thus, the melodic music triumphed over
traditional "non-format" and session, being really great non-format. In
total, 62 bands participated in all the selections, and during the four
seasons there were more than 200 bands going thru the tours of GBOB.
Among them were such famous bands as "Borsch", "Divna sumish", "Ot
vinta!", "Kvadrajessima"…
After the announcement of the winners of the fourth national final, who
were hugging one another, not believing in their happiness, "TK"
communicated with one of the judges, the chief producer of the channel
Enter Music Yury Molchanov: "All the bands are young and I don't have
an unambiguous opinion whether they were good or not. There were pluses
and minuses. I fully support the decision of jury, and the band
"AtmAsfera", that is the winner, is probably the only prominent
phenomenon from the whole mass. The main disadvantage, that all the
young, not only Ukrainian bands have, is the lack of originality,
self-identification. There were some interesting moments in the
performances of all the bands. But in general I was confused that all
the bands had songs in English. In my opinion, it's a mistake. Because
we are on the native land and must behave as Ukrainians. Besides, many
bands "borrowed" some moments from the other projects. "AtmAsfera" was
unique and very interesting. But in general I can see some progress and
I'm glad that we have different interesting music.
Ethno is a material, which you must be careful
with. Frankly speaking, real ethno is something we can stand out with.
But it's not the main component of rock. This time there was not much
ethno. But the most ethnic band has won. There many bands from
Australia, some small countries in Europe which are not famous for
ethnics. You must not try to imitate someone. It's the main problem of
our bands. As to me as the director of music channel, I'd like to
promote the video of many bands with pleasure. Taking into
consideration the format of the concert and stage, I understand that
not everyone performed the way they wanted. And if they have quality
video and good studio record - why not? We always have it as the main
goal to promote different quality music of our country.
The
final of the international contest GBOB-2007 traditionally will take
place in London. From the 4th to the 6th December bands from all over
the world will be fighting for the prize - 100.000$ and a world tour
around the countries - participants of the contest.
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