Live and Unsigned UK: Kaleidofly’s journey so far…

So here’s the situation… Kaleidofly are area finalists… who would have thought?

Our voyage began in a town called Croydon, found in the south of London. Kaleidofly, anticipated escaping this concrete jungle, packed up 2 very small cars with instruments and 5 smelly musicians on the night before our audition. Knowing that we had 98 miles to travel to Ipswich, we prepared ourselves for our trip by fuelling ourselves with McDonald’s – a meal for champions! When we arrived at Logan’s (our drummer’s) gaff, we practiced for hours and decided to reward ourselves with a few drinks – hell, that’s what being a rock star is about, drinking on a school night… right?

We arrived at the Regent Theatre the next day, and our nerves were running high. We tried to diffuse this by joking around with each other and making too much noise, which lead to us being told to shut up by one of the theatre staff members… not a good first impression.  We were then rushed into the audition room to a panel of judges scrutinising our every move. Bobby (our guitarist), always the “funny” man, couldn’t help himself from saying something stupid to the judges, commenting: “It’s a bit too early to be jamming, don’t you think?... but it’s never too early to rock ‘n’ roll!”. Kaleidofly, un-phased by this weak attempt of banter, went on to play “Insight”, one of our favourite songs, in the hope that the judges saw potential in us and our music.

We waited 45 minutes for our results. But it was ok for the boys; they killed time by staring with their tongues hanging out at the female talent that walked by every now and then. To our surprise, we had impressed the judges, who asked us to perform at the regional final showcase at the Ipswich Corn Exchange! Good times!

Our trip up to Ipswich for our regional final was stressful… Travelling from London took us longer than 4 hours because we missed our coach, which meant waiting for another… But we got there eventually.

On the day of our regional final, we were an hour late to register, and strolled in to do our sound check at 11:00am (blame Rachel-our vocalist-for forgetting our press, doh!)... these things happen… After sound checking, we were quickly ushered into our dressing room,  backstage in which we interacted with other nervous, sweaty musicians. But it was cool; we got to meet some nice people. The INtuition boys, Frost-D and Luke Burr, all of who were winners in the regional finals!

When it came to the time for us to get on stage to perform, we were all anxious and panicking that we’d mess up immensely and ruin our chances to get to the next round. We bounded out on stage to hear our supporters roaring loudly from the front row (which we greatly appreciate, by the way…). We performed “Venomous”, which we merged with “Careless Whisper” by Wham! Though our performance wasn’t perfect, we had fun, and this seemed to be well-received by the crowd; but we were really out to impress the judges too!

When it reached the time for the successful acts to be announced, we waited backstage patiently… and had to experience the excruciating pain of hearing 6 other acts being called out. Only 1 more spot was left. After what seemed like forever, our name was called out! If you’d been backstage, you’d have seen us jumping and punching-air. We were through! We went on to celebrate with a victory pint in “The Swan”, where we’ll be playing in a few weeks’ time. Interestingly, we had a chance to mingle with the judges, who were having a sneaky fag and a pint in between heats. The judges were really helpful, and seemed to like what we had to offer, complimenting us on our performance.

So far, it has been an epic journey, which has given us some much needed exposure and insight into the industry, and Kaleidofly hope to continue until the end and claim the title of Live and Unsigned winners of 2011! We’re looking forward to smashing the next round out of the park! Watch out, and remember the name Kaleidofly!

From the Kaleidofly guys (and girl)!