Review: xtrasmokefreerockquest

Last Friday night the national finals of school band competition, the xtrasmokefreerockquest, were held at the Bruce Mason Centre on Auckland's North Shore. And, thanks to my being a reporter for Rampage Radio, I was lucky enough to be there.

On arrival at the venue I was confronted by a mass of school kids queuing up and truly learned that at times like this it really does pay to arrive early! Finally gaining entry I made my way to backstage to grab some band voxpops for Rampage and checked out the amount of local "celebs" who were in attendance.

With MCs for the night, Havoc and Chanel out front, it was also easy to spot Francesca Rudkin and the Squeeze camera crew busy filming away.

As for the acts, they were nine bands competed from schools around New Zealand. They had made it to the finals, which can be considered no mean feat as a total of nearly 500 bands had entered the competition.

All the bands were well received by the mostly teenage capacity crowd. However, their moshing was a threat to the venue floor, forcing security to move the crowd barrier back by several metres.

For many of the audience, one of the main highlights of the night was certain to have been the presence of special guest band the Feelers who took to the stage at the end of the night. Even with the loss of their moshpit, the fans still managed to show their appreciation for the "veteran" band. (The average age of the Feelers may only be around 24, but relative to the other bands, they are seasoned veterans!)

Backstage I roamed round chatting to bands and found Handsome Geoffrey from Hamilton Girls Highschool the most visually stunning, with their white painted faces, quirky doll outfits and outrageous hair. The group even had a set of cardboard figures of themselves, with the whole look somewhat reminiscent of a female version of Split Enz.

In summary, to paraphrase the immortal words of former All Black Captain Sean Fitzpatrick, full credit to all participants and on the night music was the winner!

xtrasmokefreerockquest Winners

1st Handsome Geoffrey, Hamilton Girls' Highschool

2nd Vaawise, Linwood/Christchurch Boys'/Hagley High Schools

3rd Axemen, Penrose Highschool

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