21-09-2007 SQY Rocking Team

Supports: TH1RT3EN, Uplifted; Todo, Best (Netherlands)
By: Elvira Visser

  This Friday evening it was time for some real rock n roll.
  SQY Rocking Team(formerly “Sequoyah”) was playing in a little place
  called Best in the Netherlands. They play 70’s – 80’s glam-rock ‘n roll.

  The first band this night was TH1RT3EN and they had a little break due to a
  little accident that happened right before I walked in. They only had 3 songs
  left to play.
  The music sounded very powerful and the guys seemed to have enough energy.
  Maybe a bit too much for this quite big stage. To me they were drowning on the
  stage. There was happening a lot in different corners as everyone was moving.
  The singer was running and jumping around what quite fitted the music, a type
  of screamo-core. One demerit: the singer was constantly loosing his microphone
  and had to pick it up again.

  “Uplifted” was the second band to play and they did no impress me.
  The music sounded okay, but according to me it missed something. With the first
  song I had the idea that the sound of the vocalist was quite flat, later it
  sounded a bit too round. As if they needed to add something to his voice. They
  dressed up all in black, but to me they can work a bit more on their stage act.
  It was very much happening at the same place during their performance . They
  covered Bon Jovi’s “It’s my Life”, a quite long version and they did
  not add something to the song. At that point I lost my interest in the band.

Finally it was time for SQY Rocking Team and they proved that you don’t need a big audience to rock the place. Not many people had shown up, but those who did saw a real good rock ‘n roll show. What a real glam-rock ‘n roll band should do is put down a good show. And these guys from SQY did that. Now let me tell you about their show. Harald (the singer) comes up when his band mates are already on stage shaking a bottle of beer, to let go over the audience, as a first greeting. 
The singer also looks the most dressed up for this party, complete with cowboy
head. Their music does remind me a bit of that American rock and one of their
songs is titled NYC. Also Harald’s voice has that bit of raw American old rock
song voice. I could imagine bikers  driving Route 66 with SQY music coming from their speakers. The music is easy to listen to and you will nod your head in no-time.

  Halfway through Harald jumped off the stage and the audience was like: what
  the hell are you going to do? He walked around and jumped on the bar and started
  to sing, as if this was not enough he threw his microphone over a truss (tubed
  bar hanging in the air), grabbed his microphone and started singing again. The
  audience surrounded him and he was singing inside a small circle of people.
  Very funny sight I must say. Maybe it distracted a little from the other band
  mates on stage, cause you had to look at the singer in between fans. This did
  not seem to bother the other band mates. If you think this was enough crazy
  stuff, you are wrong.
  During the song “Daisy” they picked someone to join them on-stage
  she started to dance a little with her back to the guitarist. He was smiling
  because he knew what was going to happen. Harald was holding a girlie of their
  merchandise in his hands and told the girl she had to strip a little and change
  her t-shirt for the SQY girlie.
  She was allowed to face the drummer, but……she was standing on stage in her
  bra.
  She did not really mind, because she was shaking her hips while Harald was helping
  her to get out her t-shirt and into the new t-shirt. The guys in the crowd liked
  it and I think they wanted to be the drummer that moment. Just imagine her taking
  her bra off as well…
  When the trick worked (of changing the t-shirts on stage) she showed the audience
  her new t-shirt and could keep it as a souvenir.

  The end of their gig came far to soon, as they were moving on stage and built
  a good show the time ticked fast.
  Altogether this is a must-go-and-see band!