Love Is The Drug

Jet Heeled Striker
Live & Unsigned Regional Final
Ferneham Hall

Watching Jet Heeled Striker play today was a very different experience to previously. This time it was at the Live & Unsigned Regional Final with fourteen other acts and was in the middle of the day. Their job was to wow the judges and the audience well enough to be picked as one of the seven acts going through to the next stage of the competition.
Despite really hoping they would make it, I was preparing myself to console them - I know how I feel about their music but I had no control over the rest of the audiences voted. I have mentioned before that I find it hard to watch them objectively and know if they're as good as I think they are. So it was with a nervous anticipation I settled in my chair to watch the fifteen hopefuls with my friends Sue and Nicky.

At the end of the first two acts, I was beginning to think it would be a long afternoon. They were okay, but very dull to watch, neither act kept my attention or gave me that spine tingly feeling I was hoping for. Next on were Jet Heeled Striker. Most acts were playing a song of their own and a cover version of another artists work. I've never heard them play anything but their own work - part of what I love about them is that they're not your ten-a-penny pub band doing yet another mundane version of Build Me Up Buttercup. So I was intrigued to see how they were at playing someone else's work - would it have the passion and sense of 'themness' that their own work has? They covered Johnny Cash's seminal track Ring Of Fire. Which happens to be one of my most favourite songs ever. I generally hate anyone touching my favourite tracks, I get very possessive over them and think you shouldn't mess with genius. However, I loved it. I grinned like a teenager on their first magic mushroom experience; it was bright, it was rocking, it was modern, it was Johnny Cash, it was Jet Heeled Striker, and it did justice to a fantastic song. I love the Johnny Cash version, and I honestly loved their interpretation too. They didn't just play it as a straight copy, but they kept enough of it to make it an intelligent and respectful version of a classic. I. Loved. It.

The other track they played was The First Gay President. I had that spine tingly thing that their music gives me and was so obviously missing from several of the other acts playing today. Don't get me wrong, their was some tough competition up there, and some very unique and impressive acts. What was evident today was how many good artists their are out there, and just how much success or failure is in the laps of the Gods. I really felt for those who didn't get their names read out to go through to the next round. But happily I didn't have to console my friend and his band. Seems like I was right to trust my feelings after all, other people do see what I see in these five lads from Hampshire.

I realised today that each time I see them play or hear their music I get a buzz off it. That feeling in a club when your pilled up and they're playing something like Insomnia by Faithless; the way the rhythm gets into you, it pulses through your veins and you feel invincible - that's how I feel when I see them. I get a high. A legal high this time though! Each time I've seen them has coincided with when I've had a major piece of coursework due in a couple of days after. And each time I've been so buzzing from watching them play that I've worked right through the night until the work is done - the adrenaline pulsing through my veins has inspired me and woken me up.

I love this band. I love the drug like reaction I get from watching them. And I will be racing back across the country from my best friends wedding to see them in the next round of the competition.