I like it a lot. Last spring I was asked to photograph the final night of a Battle of the Bands competition at the International School Manila. In hindsight, I'm unsure exactly what I was expecting, but the evening was memorable for the performances and remarkable for the skill of the musicians.
In my day, Battle of the Bands meant thrashing around trying to sound good, being a rebel and making a lot of noise.
It was either denim and leather or hairspray and bleached highlights. Some kids could play a bit, some could hold a tune, but rarely for long and they were never in the same band!
This lot however were, to a person, amazing. The range of skills, the depth of talent, and the coherhance of the bands was a jaw dropping.
These are talented young people who obviously work closely together. It didn't matter if they were older or younger, they were all of a semi-professional standard. They didn't need to be rebellious or try to force anything - they dressed up, stood up and rocked out.
A few performers stood out, of course, perhaps confidence or affinity with the material made the difference.
What's interesting to me is that when I started editing the show I noticed that one band in particular had a disproportionate amount of photographs taken of it, and one person in particular.
This is interesting because this person was involved with many performances and his band won the competition's biggest prize.
The band, United States of Hysteria, was a league apart. The difference between amauter and professional is more than about the quality of voice or musicianship. You need those, of course, But you also need to own it.
USH owned not only the stage but the entire gig. They took the crowd, the judges and the evening into their hands and created their experience. It was a professional show. There was arrogance, skill, uniqueness - wow, that band could play.
I used to photography new bands many years ago - more than I get to now, for sure, and one or two of them stood out as having that something, that invisible invincible stagecraft that said, its only rock'n'roll, but I am it. Bands such Razorlight and Franz Ferdinand on their first album tours come to mind.
For a high school battle of the bands, that was good company to find yourself in. Not that they probably know who Razorlight or Franz Ferdinand are today. Still, I saw, I remembered and I got to photograph this lot under the night sky of Manila and it was brilliant.
