Live Music In Brighton- Blogged by Edged

The best live music in Brighton is being discovered by the Live and Unsigned music competition. The UK’s biggest music competition for original artists works to uncover the best unique, unsigned talent in the region, such as Live and Unsigned Area Finalists Edged, who have created a blog about their competition experiences for the chance to win a great prize.

Live and Unsigned Area Finalists have been asked to write about their progression through the music competition to be in with a chance of winning a prize of £500 worth of recording studio time. The best blogs from the acts involved in this year’s Live and Unsigned music competition are going online for a chance to win. The best blog will be decided by which act receives the most likes for their blog on the Live and Unsigned Facebook wall.

We’ve had a great response from bands and acts wanting to share their experiences of Live and Unsigned, and now they will be shared with you for the chance for acts to win time in a recording studio.

Throughout the week we’re going to put up an act’s blog entry for you to join in the fun and read, if you like their blog, vote for them on our Facebook page by pressing the Like button or commenting positively on their work. The act with the most support for their blog within one week of it being posted will be the winner of the recording studio time prize.

The best of luck to all of our bands and acts who have shared their stories of the Live and Unsigned music competition - get voting for your favourite!

We are Edged, a five piece rock band of fun lads having a great time…… we are Will Evans (16) Lead Vocals, Brad Steer (16) Lead Guitar, Jack Evans (17) Keyboards and musical director, John Godly (16) Drums and Toby Draper (15) Bass Guitar and backing vocals.

Our journey as a band started just one year ago with the meeting of Brad and Will at a Kiss concert in May at Wembley.  They got together, and through mutual musical talent formed the beginnings of Edged. Our influences include amazing bands such as Alter Bridge, Black Stone Cherry and Iron Maiden.  Having entered and won several competitions such as Defest and Battle of the Bands locally, we decided to go that one step further and enter the Live and Unsigned competition.

Our first audition in front of the panel of judges was held in Brighton’s Hove Centre on 29^th January 2011. We were thrilled to be put through, and once finished in Brighton we all piled into the vehicles to attend a gig Edged were playing at The Long Room Tooting!  It was a very long day and we didn’t get home until into the early hours of the morning!!

Practice and more practice became the number one priority for the band from that moment on.  Following the audition at Brighton we had a Battle of the Bands to also get organised for!  Edged therefore tried to split time in practice between the songs for Battle of the Bands, and more importantly organising the songs for the next round of Live and Unsigned.  We had decided to do No Ice (Edged original song) and Call Me (Blondie).  Much appreciation and praise must go to Jack Evans for his amazing arrangement.  

 Onwards towards Battle of the Bands on March 12^th Edged took to the Stage at the Arc in Caterham to cheers from the local crowd.  We were very pleased to win the competition but had little time to celebrate with Live and Unsigned looming around the corner on April 16^th.

All was going really well…… then John, our drummer, broke his finger and was unable to use his right hand!  Panic was the order of the day… so John being amazing learnt to play the no ice/call me combination with just one hand and his feet!  It was literally only a couple of days before the competition in Brighton that John was able to use both of his hands again.

Sooner than we could ever have believed the day arrived and we were off to Brighton once again for the Regional Final of the competition.  Having arrived in good time the band had time to relax and enjoy the atmosphere before the sound checks.  To all of our horror the sound check didn’t go according to plan at all….. But as it is said it’s better to mess up in the dress rehearsal and get the real performance right!

 After discussions and deliberations regarding the sound check, Edged once again took to the stage, this time in front of the live audience to perform their songs.  We were all very pleased with the final performance, and much encouraged by the back stage comradeship between all of the contestants.  A nervy few minutes after all of the acts had completed their slots as the results were to be read out.  Edged are delighted to have been put through to the Area Finals in Basildon, Essex on May 15^th by the judge’s vote. We are once again hard at work having practises as much as our exam timetables will allow!!  Live and Unsigned has been a fabulous experience for us, and we are so looking forward to the next round of the competition.  Be assured that we are hard at work and looking forward to the event very much…….. Fingers crossed for one more massive performance and then we’ll hopefully be off to the O2.

Best Wishes from the guys of Edged.

If you like Edged’s blog, you have a week to vote for them on ourFacebook page by pressing the Like button! Watch out throughout the week ahead for more blog entries from bands and acts sharing their experiences from Live and Unsigned 2011.