Welp. We kinda backed ourselves into a corner doing a Week 1 Rock & Roll Rumble live recap (Read it here) and thinking it was possible to skip doing the same for Week 2, right? Look, we’re not going to sugarcoat it for you. You missed some gems if you decided to stay home when the Preliminary Rounds of the 2024 Rock & Roll Rumble from Boston Emissions wrapped up, okay? And that’s alright since you have us looking out for you in a grand way with this live rundown of what happened across Nights 4, 5, & 6 of the annual Rawk Fest. So with that, sit back, relax, and let us regale you some more of what went down over at Middle East Upstairs in the hopes that you’ll be purchasing your tickets to the Semis at Sonia as soon as you finish reading! Do we have a deal? And again, links to our preview posts in the corresponding headers so you can grab all the pertinent music and more from these killer local artists.
[Read more…]RNRF X Rock & Roll Rumble: Week 1 Preliminary Round Live Recap
We were initially planning to go all loosey goosey (An actual official term, by the way) with live coverage of this year’s Rock & Roll Rumble which basically amounts to a maybe we will/maybe we won’t mentality following our annual preview pieces of the Boston institution. Then we took some time to process what we witnessed and thought “Oh, fuck it!” and decided to dive in with one big mega post of all of Week 1’s treasures (Hyperlinked headers to our preview posts so you can find all the pertinent band links and music). So enjoy? And SPOILER ALERT: We will be mentioning the winners here (Dubbed in the appropriate regional dialect as “Winnahs”) in case you haven’t had a chance to catch up on your DVR yet.
[Read more…]RNRF X Rock & Roll Rumble: Week 2, Night 6
The end is nigh! Yes, you read that right! Following these last 4 daring artists, the stage will be set and whittled down to just 6 who will battle it out over at Sonia in the Semi-Final Rounds before the Grand Finale this May the Fourth. Do you have a favorite yet? Well, hold off just a little while longer and sit right back and you’ll hear a tale… of the last four artists to take the Preliminary Round stage at Middle East Upstairs on April 13th:
[Read more…]RNRF X Rock & Roll Rumble: Week 2, Night 5
The end is in sight! Of the Preliminary Round, that is. But before we get to the end of this particular round, we’d love to introduce you to the four fresh new faces (Well, more than just 4 cuz BANDS) who’ll be getting their Rumble on during the penultimate Preliminary night:
[Read more…]RNRF X Rock & Roll Rumble 2024: Week 2, Night 4
Week 2 of the Rock & Roll Rumble starts NOW! Well, for us and in the interest of this posting it does but in actuality it starts on Thursday, April 11th back at Middle East Upstairs with the first 4 of 12 fresh bands scheduled to appear during the final Preliminary Rounds. Are you sad that the rounds are almost over? Have a favorite yet? Well, here’s some more fodder to confuse and confound all those decisions you thought you already made:
[Read more…]RNRF X Rock & Roll Rumble 2024: Week 1, Night 3
Moving right along aaaaaand we’ve made it to the end of Week 1 and the competition is already FIERCE! On this particular night we’ve got veterans of the Boston Music Scene battling against relative noobs (Read: novices) that still sound like they’re 4 albums deep only a few years into a burgeoning career. And with that said, we present the 4 bands representing Night 3 of the 2024 Rock & Roll Rumble:
[Read more…]RNRF X Rock & Roll Rumble 2024: Week 1, Night 2
We made it through Night 1! Or we will. For now, we’ve just made it through the first post about the Preliminary rounds so there’s a long way to go both in our postings and in, y’know, the actual shows that have so much behind the scenes work put into them ahead of time (Thanks, Anngelle Wood and Boston Emissions among others) before bands even hit the stage. Like they will once again at Middle East Upstairs on Friday, April 5th (See what we did there???) Anyway, our purported cleverness aside let’s see what Night 2 holds:
[Read more…]RNRF X Rock & Roll Rumble 2024: Week 1, Night 1
Can one have multiple “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” parts of a year? Like, we dig the hell out of October. Because Spooky Szn. And November. Because it’s our (Read: RNRF) birthday month. So, Fall in general. But this sweet spot in in April when the Rock & Roll Rumble returns and Salem Horror Fest is right around the corner is quickly becoming our JAM!
[Read more…]Helen McWilliams: A Rock And Roll Fables Conversation
We don’t watch a lot of reality TV but when we do we definitely get invested enough and get bummed when the higher ups overlook the underdogs we usually root for. While the Rock & Roll Rumble is by no means the same as reality TV, the fact of the matter is that the annual competition is reality. And we definitely had some favorites who some would consider underdogs after some lengthy research leading up to our preview coverage. One of those artists was Salem’s own ONE FALL who, being a relatively new band with only a few shows under their belt at the time, managed to win the whole damn thing! And from the performances we saw throughout the course of the Rumble we could see why.
[Read more…]RNRF X Rock & Roll Rumble: Finals Live Recap/Review
“It’s not a competition, it’s a celebration!”
Helen McWIliams, vocalist and rhythm guitarist for eventual 2023 NEW CHAMP One Fall, probably summed up the entirety of this year’s Rock & Roll Rumble the best during their crown (And crowd) winning set on Saturday evening in front of a packed house at Sonia on Night 9 of 9 of the Rumble’s triumphant return.
[Read more…]