Review: Crimson Ties at The Square
Lifestyle / Mon 14th Oct 2013 at 10:43am
By Holly Reijs
FIVE EXCITED lads jumped onto the stage with a lot of energy. Looking across the packed-out room, there must have been just over sixty five people watching in amazement for the first song to kick off. There was a really long intro on the first song, which did lose a lot of the audience’s attention. Subsequently, they then started talking to one another. There was also a microphone problem, but this didn’t stop the band from continuing on with the song.
Blue, orange and green lighting shone down on the band, as well as flashes of white light in all different places from the three photographers who were snapping photographs of the nervous lads on the stage. This could have been putting off lead singer Harrison as he didn’t seem to be giving the audience a lot of eye contact and he did seem pretty nervous to say the least.
Further on in the set, the band seemed to let go a little more and seemed a lot more confident as time went on. Harrison was now jumping along to the music and was engaging with the audience, getting them to clap along and really get them involved. This made the crowd give a loud applause after every song sung, and it also got them chanting towards the band members, making them smile and get used to what they were doing.
There did seem to be a lot of people standing still, just staring at these five young musicians whilst they did their thing. It’s safe to say they have their own fan base. As four of the band members are under the age of eighteen, they brought a lot of their school friends, college friends and family along with them.
Being such a young band, they do have a lot more time to get it right. The songs seemed to have a lot more music but just not enough singing. This is what lost a lot of the audience attention, and made a few people leave the room. It was hard to engage to the lyrics at times due to the fact the sound wasn’t too good and it seemed that the microphone wasn’t turned up enough.
By the end of the last song, everyone was cheering which made the five band members smile from ear to ear. Crimson Ties have a lot more to give and will go a long way in the future with a little more planning to their music and sets.
CJLewis
2013-10-14 15:15:15
Besides being badly written, this review is factually incorrect. The author hasn't even managed to get band members' ages right and makes assumptions about people's reasons for leaving early without, presumably, asking them.
lesleyjayne
2013-10-14 16:28:28
I think the author of this article must have been at a different gig to the rest of us. I was at the back of the hall recording the above video and apart from in between when the bands were changing over I wasn't aware of anyone leaving plus the crowd were chanting for the Crimson Ties right from the start as is audible on the first video from the evening!
sarahgreene
2013-10-14 17:02:51
Just wanted to clarify whether this reviewer was attending the same gig as me? From when the boys walked on stage, hoping to please the crowd from start to finish, they were amazing. The crowd were pumped. I checked with the promoter wanting to know how well the boys were doing on the sales front, where I was told they had racked up an income of £208 before 8:30. For a local band just getting started, with the youngest band member at a mere 15, I believe the night went thoroughly excellent. I know Crimson Ties will do very well in the future, using every review and every comment to boost themselves. Also just wanted to correct the fact that people had to leave as this was a Thursday night, school is on five days a week, one of the audience who i talked to was 15 and had to be picked up due to the event the next day. When Crimson Ties came on to play, everyone talked and danced with each other, there was a connection between fans of all ages. For a young, self-produced band playing The Square as their first headlining gig, the show was an insight on how successful they will be in the future. Overall I am very impressed with how the night turned out and know that the boys will use this review to their benefit, and will learn from the feedback. Well done Crimson Ties!
HeloiseB
2013-10-14 17:18:02
Considering that reporting is presumably something that you wish to make a career out of, I would have expected more from you than this. Not only is it poorly written, but it also fails to correctly report what actually happened. Whilst I can agree with some of the comments you made, being there myself, I noticed absolutely no nervousness at all, and I think that is just a load of rubbish that you made up to try and make more of a story out of it than it was. Not at any point was there any issue with eye contact, movement of the performers, and there was no point where there was 'not enough singing'. Also, the lead singer was not 'pretty nervous to say the least'. I'm not sure what you were trying to imply. Being that this band has been on the circuit for quite some time now, they aren't nervous, they are professional, and three of them are over the age of 18, probably close to your age. These 'nervous lads', as you so call them, appeared perfectly confident and at ease that night and performed professionally without any issues. So, if you really fancy yourself to be 'quite the journalist', maybe take some time to get your facts straight; paying attention to what's actually going on can go a long way, you never know when you're going to get called out.
iron135
2013-10-14 18:35:20
I can't believe the rubbish that I have just been reading in this review. For a young band that has not been together very long and some of the positive comments I heard about crimson ties on the night, the reviewer must have been on a different planet. It was an excellent night and the crowd enjoyed it, well done crimson ties.
michael casey
2013-10-14 18:41:55
Editor's comment. Thank you for your feedback. It is a game of opinions and it is your right to critique our reporter's review as much as Holly critiqued The Crimson Ties. Our newspaper has only been running three months or so but it is our aim to give the arts and especially music as much coverage as possible. We look forward to covering The Crimson Ties for many years to come.
adamsmith
2013-10-14 20:31:26
Just like young musicians, young journalists need support and encouragement. I hope the band can take away the positives from the article, and I hope Holly continues to write and grow as a journalist.
Chris1110
2013-10-14 23:21:38
You all, as loving friends and family one would assume, are here passionately defending these guys as young up and comers, working their way up and trying their hardest to move forward. So how about you take a look at some of the personal comments that you've now been throwing at a young music journalist, who gave her honest opinion about the evening. And may I ask you all to READ THE REVIEW AGAIN? She cited the lead singer, and the bands, nervousness a few times, whilst giving a generally positive review all around. She described the atmosphere of the night, and put just as much passion into going out there to see these boys,and taking the time to write said fairly positive review, as they put into their music, and this review may well help these lads out in the future whether it be a promoter checking them out prior to a booking, or someone looking for an insight to their past. So you all are the ones who need to check their facts, because this vicious, personal response is completely unjustified for what was a fair critique of this bands performance, and the personal comments, for someone who is working hard, studying hard, and trying to work their way through the ranks, were completely unnecessary.
HeloiseB
2013-10-15 15:30:51
Personal attack... How about practice what you preach rather than insinuate that the only fans they could possibly have were 'loving friends and family'. No doubt you are a relative, or 'loving friend' of the reporter if you follow that logic? If you want to be taken seriously, don't open a sentence with something which you intend to be undermining. Considering that we are all entitled to an opinion, as you so put it, we are allowed to call someone out for not reporting what many experienced, and what many found to be a good performance. Also, what I read was not a review. There was no mention of the actual quality of the music, no mention of what the music style was, and it was clear that the reporter did absolutely no homework before writing about the band, making several errors and making it seem like this was a first time gig for the band. There was no opinion on the music either; it says 'not enough singing', but that tells us nothing, it doesn't say whether the reviewer thought the music was good or bad, and it doesn't comment on the singing quality either. I also feel that this needs to be said, if someone hopes to be a journalist, they must be prepared to deal with people disagreeing with their 'opinions', and if you LOOK AT THE COMMENTS you will find that many people disagree, but no one has tried to single this person out on a personal level, we don’t know the person so it is impossible to do that. Therefore, you need to take a moment to think about how preposterous you are sounding right now, trying to shame people for calling out someone for their inaccurate account. I also find it a bit strange that you would class this as 'personal' and 'vicious'. If someone were to make vicious and personal comments, they would use expletives and mock the writer's appearance and personal life. As I see none of this here, I think you need to take a reality check, the work this individual has done stops being personal the minute it is made available for public viewing, so to class these as personal comments is a ridiculous thing to do. Also, we are entitled to critique the writer just as much as they are entitled to critique the band. There would have been no problem if this person had described the music as being not to their taste, or that they simply weren't won over by the band because of this-that-and this, but to state things that no one else saw and to suggest that they weren't professional is just insulting to the band and frustrating for the people who were actually watching the band to read.
CJLewis
2013-10-16 13:47:54
This review has recently been edited to remove glaring grammatical errors yet there is nothing stating this on the article so only those who'd previously read it would be aware of this. This is unprofessional and unacceptable when comments have already been made. Proper newspapers add the times and dates of any editorial changes.
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