Apart from the dry ice overkill it was a great gig.

Clawback is a five-member band formed in 2008 by Kevin, Paul, Simon Dino, and our classmate Max Krook. There sound could be described as melodic hard rock with some metal elements. This year the band entered the Emergenza band competition and won their way to the UK Final. The prize for the final was to play in Germany.
The show took place on July 3rd 2010 at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town. We met up with the band at a pub down the road for a pre-show drink and then lost track of time and had to leg it up the road to catch their gig. Clawback went on stage around 9pn and played a 30-minute set. Considering the band is used to playing in pubs and small venues they made good use of the stage space.
There was a good crowd of people watching Clawback perform. The venues use of dry ice was a bit excessive, to the point where for half their set you couldn’t make out the band through the fog. There are some pretty good photos showing this. It was cool when the band performed their song ‘War’ and the lights went red and made the smoke look red as well.
Sound wise it was a decent. There were no noticeable level problems or feedback loops that I can remember. It was pretty consistent for the whole night.
The voting system at these gigs always puzzles me. I don’t think it’s right, fair or real for that matter. At the end of each bands set someone comes on stage and asks to see a show of hands in support of the band that just played. The hands are counted and there is also supposedly a panel of industry people who decide the other half of the vote. Nothing is stopping people from voting more than once and I do wonder if the winner is predetermined somehow.
As it was the Emergenza UK Final there were quite a few other bands playing ranging in style from pop punk to a Linkin Park meets Fred Durst type of band [You had to be there for that one]. Saying this there were some good bands but of course we are always going to be bias as we’re friends with Max Krook. As always with competitions we had to wait until the end of the night to hear the results.
Clawback unfortunately did not win the UK final. There was a lot of competition and they put on a great show. The bassist however did get a prize for best of the night Max’s family had come in from Sweden and there was a good group of us there which made it a fun night out. Other than the stolen phone, it was a really good night.

Bibliography,
Clawback, MySpace page [Online]
Available at: http://www.myspace.com/clawbackrockband [Last Accessed: September 2nd 2010]

Emergenza, MySpace page [Online]
Available at: http://www.myspace.com/emergenzafestivaluk [Last Accessed: September 2nd 2010]

Emergenza, official website [Online]
Available at: http://www.emergenza.net/home.asp [Last Accessed: September 2nd 2010]

HMV Forum, official website [Online]
Last Accessed: http://venues.meanfiddler.com/the-forum/home [Last Accessed: September 2nd 2010]

Remote Goat, Emergenza UK Final gig info [Online]
Last Accessed: http://www.remotegoat.co.uk/event_view.php?uid=106911 [Last Accessed: September 2nd 2010]

Venues and Bands, Clawback page [Online]
Available at: http://www.venuesandbands.co.uk/bands/Clawback [Last Accessed: September 2nd 2010]