BIMM - Showcase Review

It would be foolish to assume that a college dedicated to the relentless pursuit of musical stardom would put on a bad show, wouldn’t it? Yes, yes it would. But I did. Foolishly.  I would guess my formative years spent attending amateur college gigs is where such foolishness and general apathy towards Irish bands began to manifest.I was so damn disillusioned with the state of Irish music I had totally forgotten that real ‘I say real’ (existential debate aside) musicians still existed in Dublin.Plural noun ‘The’ bands and shrill mic feedback had coloured my perception of what live music in Dublin had become. I would see a youthful face with dilated star-shaped pupils like a strange anamorphic Elton John, holding a sticker covered telecaster and reach for my most deafening earmuffs.The kind that provided much needed audio asphyxiation. Disorientating yes, but still preferable to a hearing a vaguely out of tune Arctic Monkeys cover. It seems however that I had kept the earmuffs on for too long. How sweet it is to hear again.

BIMM’s musical showcase night was a variety display of its best bands, only a few had made it to the intimate stage of the Button Factory and as the beer-sticky floor began to fill I was, in ignorance, expecting the worst.

With military style efficiency the first band arrived on stage – Talking Legs with a version of Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’.Trashing around the stage in a pair of aviation googles (possibly to avert the blistering strobe lights), their frontman was somewhere between brazenly enthusiastic and manically odd.As it ended I thought, ‘Well that was great’, and so it continued throughout the night, band after band restoring my faith in amateur music.

What struck me most was the array of genres on show, from radio-friendly jams to death metal growls I pictured myself traveling between epochs, a musical ‘Phileas Fogg’ dropping my balloon whenever my ears picked up a virtuoso tune.A cover of Purple Rain here, a catchy soul original there; it was as though I had been given Gabrielle’s iPod and had spent a blissful purgatory on shuffle.

One such memorable cover was performed by Give it to Mammas – a note-for-note rendition of Beyoncé’s ‘Green Light’.Jordan Onubogu, a man who looked like he was genetically engineered in a lab to become a star, stood patiently behind the MC, sung a few bars not to his liking and then sang again. It was pretty incredible.Considering that the ‘Mamma’s’ had jammed with Beyoncé’s backing band when she played here two weeks ago, it was not a major surprise that they happened to be brilliant.

All that said it was a gig after all, and ‘when the music’s over’ they turn out the lights and we were all sent, leather jackets and hip haircuts, to the Workman’s club.Regressing back into their student-selves the former performers of the evening were drinking and fumbling over conversation as all students do.

How strange they all looked, acting as if they were normal human beings. I suppose stars don’t really lose the run of themselves until you’ve given them a tour bus. BIMM roadshow tour anyone?