Music: Blueprint

Fitzpatrick Hall, Queens' College

I was pretty excited to be seeing Blueprint at the ADC last night. Having never heard them perform before, and after all the hype (complimented in no small part by the ecstatic reviews of their gig in Michaelmas), expectations were peaking as I walked into the box office at 22:50. I was rather put out that the ADC seemed to have mislaid my Varsity tickets for the evening’s performance. After 8 minutes of bureaucratic faff, and what must have been the fifth time the tannoy had announced that “Tonight’s performance of Hostage will begin in a few minutes”, I realized my error, felt pretty stupid, and legged it to Queens’ College.

As it happens, I needn’t have rushed. I arrived just after 23:00, only to find myself at the end of a large queue (the bouncers didn’t take kindly to my seditious attempts to fast-track myself as Varsity critic). Yes, Blueprint had burly beefcakes on every entrance to the Fitzpatrick Hall, making sure that the recent Metallica-induced Colombian riots couldn’t repeat themselves in Cambridge. When, at 23:34, I eventually strolled into the Hall, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the show started over half an hour late on purpose so that Blueprint could cash in on their mock-celebrity status by being fashionably late. If that was the case, although it was pretty cold outside, I can’t blame them for it. The group is clearly aware of the boy band image it wants to sell, and (predominantly female) Cambridge students adore them for it.

The Fitzpatrick Hall was simply the wrong venue. With its light-beige wooden paneling and floor accompanied by whizzing blue/red lights of the kind that emanate from a disco ball, it felt a bit too much like a school gym turned into teenage prom for the night.

Then the lights stopped spinning, dry ice avalanched itself onto the stage, and the speakers blared out Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra (aka. the fanfare motif to 2001: A Space Odyssey) as the five members of Blueprint in their cream tuxedos positioned themselves in a line with their backs to the audience. I was pretty impressed with their initial presentation; they had a great live backing band (which during the gig’s interlude performed a fabulously tight rendition of the Mission Impossible theme), and I enjoyed their self-conscious mockery of boy band choreography, which consisted of a repeated series of synchronized hand gestures, swaying, and stamping of feet while singing covers of Westlife, Ronan Keating, and the Bee Gees.

So, as a lively and energetic spectacle, I’d give Blueprint full marks. But I’m a stickler for tuning, and I just wasn’t satisfied with everything I was hearing from vocals. The only member of the group who came close to resembling a professional sound was Dan Garsin (who - fortunately - appeared to have most of the solos anyway), but there was always a detectable flat monotone in the underlying harmony, exposed most patently in their a capella style rendition of How Deep is Your Love. All the others in the group were entertainers, and looked the part with their immaculate hair-dos and shiny faces - but vital substance was crucially lacking.