This was the first time I've seen a band at Wool Street, the new restaurant in Cary. Wool Street is another one of the new generation of bars where they go for the high ceiling, two levels of seating/standing and they cram the place with as many TVs as they can hang. (a la Finn McCool's, Fire Bar, etc.). This is supposed to draw 25-year-olds like moths to a flame. This place even has a GINORMOUS projection TV on the wall over where the band plays which has the band playing on the screen as well via a well-placed camera. Brand new place. Still a little sterile. Needs a little breaking in. It's a JD-booked place which means there is yet another place you can see Insomnia at once a month.
The acoustics were not near as bad as I imagined they might be.At the time of this writing, I just got back from Wool Street. I don't mean this in any kind of a bad way but, this is a wedding or lounge band with an edge. The place was busy and crowded with 30-somethings and maybe a few Lower-Forty-Somethings having a good time in their own 30-something and Lower-Forty-Somethings way. You know what I mean. Those people that obviously don't get out a lot and when they do, they just don't look real natural having a good time. It was actually kind of like a wedding where people were not dressed in suits and dresses and the band was not in tuxes.
Eleventh Hour although good, reminded me of a lounge band; both in song selection and general sound. The drummer was good. The bass player could hardly be heard but I think he was good. The guitar player was good. The keyboard player was not very audible most of the time and adequate. It was the singer that put the final touch on the lounge/wedding sound. She was OK. She was a bit pitchy dawg. She moved like a wedding/lounge singer and sang pretty good but didn't sound particularly better or worse than 90% of all other female lead singers. She's very attractive but for me, the whole package just wasn't totally there.
They sounded good. The wedding/lounge sound come from the not-varied-very-often sound of the keyboard, the guitar sound and the female vocal. I got there after 11 pm and without looking at the songlist on their web site at http://www.eleventhhourlive.com/ I'll bet there was some Melissa E and Benatar songs done earlier before I got there. The other thing that creates the lounge/wedding sound is the song selection. When I got there, Promises In The Dark (Benatar) was being performed and I then heard, Save A Horse Ride A Cowboy, Freak Out, Knock On Wood (vocal was off on this one), Shake Your Booty, Walk This Way, Sweet Home Alabama (not a great version) and when I was getting ready to leave, Faithfully (Journey). See what I mean?
Actually, this was not a bad band at all. It's just that it was a band for the older, straighter and whiter crowd. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Also, the place was pretty crowded and very into the music. I've seen several bands at Duke O'Brien's lately that didn't get the crowd or the crowd response that this band had this night ... and generating crowds is really what this is all about. Therefore, Eleventh Hour had a very successful night!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment