Friday, May 4, 2012

Undercover - Anchor Inn

Television and movies have made the role of people undercover look like some glamorous adventure where everyone gets a hot girlfriend and they catch the bad guy all in a neat little 56 minute block of time.  Despite the pretty picture that has been painted (probably by Bob Ross), undercover work is a thankless, boring job.  The first night we were in Omaha recently I went "undercover" kind of and watched the band "Undercover" perform.  Did I get the bad guy at the end?  Did I get to shoot the bad guy?  Keep reading.

No I did not get the bad guy and no did I shoot them either, but I did sit down to watch a band that I had never heard of:  Undercover  As the band began to play we were just settling in to our new surroundings and there was a certain amount of trepidation as we knew nothing about the band and their music.

Undercover is a 6 piece band so when they took the smallish stage they seemed a bit cramped as there wasn't much room to navigate amidst the cords, instruments and the people playing those instruments.  Subsequently the band seemed to be kind of discombobulated. Add audio troubles to the mix and you are developing a recipe for an interesting night of performing.

At times the audio failed for the bass and a couple of times I noticed a loss of vocals and guitar.  However at no time did the band not play well.  Each member of the band held up their end of the bargain and did it great!  I was impressed by the performance of both guitar players Dale Hayes and Lee Tasey.  These gentlemen played really well and watching them perform was fun.

On bass and synthesizers was were Ledo Ledesma and Teresa Ledesma respectfully, and their performance was pretty good.  Unfortunately the audio issues affected both of them the most but they played through it, and at a high level.  I'm sure lesser bands would have been thrown off and their performance would indeed suffer but it didn't seem to be an issue.

With Eric Lee on drums the band has a solid backbone that makes the band flow well.  Its apparent in watching Lee that he is a consummate professional and I found that he was interesting to watch play.  Demonstrative while playing makes watching him perform fun.

As Kaity Preston began to belt out the vocals I was immediately drawn to the fact that she has a little Alanis Morrissette, Katy Perry and Alannah Myles in her vocals.  Her vocal style fits the band so well and despite all of the audio issues, she seemed to have none.  Of the vocals of Teresa Ledesma and Preston both are very good at the job but I would lean a little more toward Preston as the best of the two.

Undercover is a nice band, they're fun to watch and they have some excellent musicians bit unfortunately for me the problems with the audio and a tuning issue here and there made the experience nice and not mind-blowing.  I'm sure that the band is better than that night, I mean they would have to be.  The vocals of Preston alone make me think that the band wants a powerful singer at the helm so I am confident at the capabilities of the rest of the band.

If you are in the Omaha / Council Bluffs area, give them a chance.  The potential alone makes this a fun band to see live.

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