FROM THE ASHES

The first half of 2011 was dominated by the Surface Festival for FROM THE ASHES. Towards the end of 2010 the idea had been hit upon to enter a battle of the bands competition. We figured that this sort of competition would be useful in terms of building our stage craft. Also, it would (depending on how far we progressed) give us some ready made gigs at some damn killer venues.

The first gig was at 229: The Venue in Mornington Cresent, and it’s fair to say that we absolutely owned that night. Getting the highest score in the first round for the entire London region, and the second highest score in all of Europe. Any way you look at it, that’s a hell of an achievement!

The second round gig took place at The Purple Turtle in Camden, a venue that both Steve and Mal had played before with previous bands. Again, FROM THE ASHES carried the night, for a while holding the UK highest score for the second round. That show was particularly high tempo, and a stand out memory from the whole experience. We walked away worthy winners on the night.

This all meant we’d qualified for the regional semi-finals, which were held at the O2 Academy in Angel, Islington. A few months previous two of the band had been there to see Orange Goblin, so we were quite excited. We got on and absolutely nailed our set, playing in front of a sell out crowd of over 200 people. Alas though, we didn’t get through that night (which the crowd weren’t happy about, and let their feelings be known…). The thing is; we’d accomplished a lot of what we’d set out to do.

We did become a better live band through the experience, as well as more cohesive as a unit. We learnt a lot about self-promotion, and we played some awesome venues. Not to mention making enough money to pay for the EP that got to #1 in the Amazon.co.uk ‘Hard Rock & Metal’ mp3 chart. In every way we achieved our goals, and felt justifiably proud of the whole experience!