7th Heaven - 3.23.07 at Duke O'Brien's

Interesting group. It's amazing they can get those 9+ guys on that small stage at Duke's. Actually, it's a 4-piece band (G-G-B-D) that performs along with some pre-recorded tracks on a lap top ... not all of the songs ... but a lot of them. Musically, the four real players are very good. My favorite is the drummer. He's one of the better drummers you'll see out there. I think many musicians would split on whether playing along with a lap top is OK. Some look at this as full-band karaoke, but I don't. I think they did a great job of it and the tracks were very seamless with the real band's sound. What really counts is what their audience thinks and their audience loved them. Besides, there are other bands out there doing this as well. The point is to put asses in the seats and they seemed to have done this at Duke O'Brien's. They are good performers. They did a 25-minute hot mix at 120 beats-per-minute (your heartbeat rate) of portions of about 20 or 30 of your favorite classic rock tunes. They do a good job also with the new music. The lead singer is very good (not Idol material but very good). There's two other mics up there but you really don't know if the bass player and lead guitar player can sing as you suspect it's the lap top doing the singing when their mouths are at the mics.

All in all, this is a good band and you should get out to see them. I was only able to catch 1 set of theirs as they did the one thing that I hate the most ... they started 50 minutes late! When you're supposed to go on at 10PM and you make an effort to get there at 10 and they're only 1/2 way set up, this is bad. I think it shows a disrespect for your fans and for the prospective new fans. This is the first time I've seen them and I was hoping to catch another band last night as well but when I got to Govnor's at 8:50 to see whoever was playing there, they were still setting up and they are billed as starting at 9. That was two bands with late starts so I was pissed when I got to Duke's anyway. Well, 7th Heaven was a good group and you should make a point of seeing them! http://www.7thheavenband.com/