AKA pride themselves on being the best rock covers band in the Midlands - and who are we to argue?

A.K.A. @ the Chestnut Tree Sheldon.

Hailing from Evesham, A.K.A. are a five piece band consisting of Gordon on vocals and occasional guitar, Jimmy on guitar and backing vocals, Tim on guitar, keyboard and backing vocals, Elly on bass, and last and be no means least Ronnie on drums.

Formed in 1999 they play a wide variety of rock covers from the late 70’s to the present day, they throw in songs from the likes of The Undertones, Rainbow and Queen to stuff from The Kaiser Chiefs, Fall Out Boy and Orson, and that got me thinking, I’ve seen a lot of the cover bands doing the rounds at the moment and in general they tend to shy away from any of the more recent material by the newer bands, you might occasionally get Buck Rogers by Feeder (which this band does do!!) but that is 6 years old, this band perform stuff that is right up to date with Dani California by the Chilli’s, Monster by The Automatic, and Sugar We’re Going Down by Fall Out Boy all played at this gig, and played extremely well they were, Gordon having the kind of voice that completely suited the songs without having to sound exactly like the original singer, he did a very good job indeed and the guy also picked up the guitar when Tim was too busy on the keyboards to play two instruments at once! On the subject of Tim, a lot of bands play Van Halen’s Jump but very often the keyboards just don’t sound right, but this guy has got the sound absolutely spot on, good work fella!

The Band stormed through one classic song after another from bands such as Nirvana, The Cult, Aerosmith, Blink 182 and Foo Fighters, all of which sounded very like the original versions but the band don’t play them in an analytical style, they really do seem to be enjoying every minute of it up there, and don’t seem to take themselves that seriously, even including a rocked up version of Erasures song Respect! The band played a blinder that night with the level of musicianship very high, the audience had a great time, the band definitely played something for everyone, you may even find yourself singing along to the Erasure song!

I’d definitely give them another look when they come back to this venue on the 7th July, other dates can be found on the bands myspace address at www.myspace.com/akalivemusic as well as 4 tracks to listen to from the live set, Queen’s Hammer to Fall, Pearl Jam’s Easy, Rainbow’s Since You’ve Been Gone and as previously mentioned VH’s Jump, if you like what you hear go and see em, if you don’t, go anyway, I’m sure that if you like rock music they will play something you like!

Twang