I had a somewhat fortuitous night this past Friday evening. Got on the guest list for the Onward, Soldiers show at The Soap Box, one of my friends recently started working for them, so I was going to review their show. After too much dilly dallying, we arrived too late and missed them. No worries, an interview and show review to come.
I did however walk in on the beginning of Beta Radio an their CD release party. From the looks of it, didn’t really seem like my kind of music. There were eight of them up on stage, the banjo, trumpet, and violin stuck up the most. They also were toting and electric and acoustic guitar , bass, drums, and a rotund lady standing in front of a mic.
They started off quite slow, but what would you expect for a folk band. The lead singer, Ben Mabry, who plays guitars and deliver on lead vocals, is who really got my attention early. Especially for a dude, he can really sin, like he was great. He can also write very well too, as I later found out he took care of all the songwriting for the band, along w/ Banjo/guitar player Brent. Brent and Ben have been making music together since the late 90’s.
As I said, they started slow, but picked it up after the 3rd song and brought their entire onstage energy level up a bunch of notches. This forced the crowd, who was just in swaying mode, to match this energy, making the show a bit more bearable.
Sorry I just dont like folk. But if you do, I encourage you to check out Beta Radio, http://wearebetaradio.com/. People in NC like folk music and I trust their folk music judgement, and they had The Soap Box, a 600 person venue, 60-70% full, so they cant be as bad as I thought they were.