7 years on and it's Y2K again!!!!

Yes, peeps. And the winner is.....the masked men of Y2K!
Closely followed by runner-ups and my new favourite band, Revenge!

The blurb on the official gbob website says this: Somewhere in Malaysia could be a band destined to win US$100,000, a world tour and a major chance at international success. World championship GBOB Challenge – the Global Battle of the Bands is the one true coveted award an aspiring musical group could hope for with the most attractive rewards in terms of artistic gratification, monetary prizes, global exposure and every band’s dream for a world tour (not to mention the appeal of a World Finals held in London).

Malaysia participates in the world’s biggest live music competition for the first time and will compete amongst 38 countries, giving raw or established Malaysian musical talents the opportunity to springboard into the international music scene. Local band hopefuls of any musical genre and whether signed or unsigned by a recording label can now rise to the ranks of world-class musical artistes, provided they showcase original material and strictly play only live music.

The GBOB Challenge is a three-step process. Local qualifying heats will lead to a National Final. The winners of the National Finals will go forward to the World Finals. Judges will be respected music business figures with a professional interest in popular music. Local qualifying heats will take place on Nov. 1 & 2 at Club 18 on Jalan Liku, off Jalan Riong, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur. All finalists will receive cash prizes. The National Finals will be held on Nov. 3, 2007 also at Club 18.

The grand prize for the national champion is RM50,000.00 in cash, a recording contract with Life Records for a compilation album and a trip to London as the official Malaysian representative to the GBOB World Finals. GBOB is supported by the Ministry of Youth & Sports under the “Belia Benci Dadah” programme, ASTRO, Traxx FM, Life Records, Go International Group and Doppelganger Open Mic, FACES and FACES online, ROTTW and rottworld.com, i-bands.net and malscene.net. Club 18 is the Official Venue. For enquiries, please call Issa Rodriguez Medina at 03 2144 5733/ 019 357 5733 or email malaysia@gbob.com/ issa@pan-asia.com.my.

And so, while the judges deliberated, we managed to sneak in three acts for the Doppelganger Open Mic slots. Izzy Mohamed bravely staged two songs, Abstrak Hingga ke Bulan (Zarul on lead guitar, Faiza on vocals, Atom on bass and Wan on drums) took on another 3 with punk rock band Revenge's fans hovering at the 'mosh pit'. Reza Salleh followed with a super tight set of 5 songs and 1 encore with his full band (Melina, Hanafi & Stephanie). His newly converteds just couldn't get enough! So that's GBOB 2007. Watch out for it next year. Definitely bigger, braver & better! Thanks to my crew and friends for supporting Doppelganger Open Mic's participation in this year's event!

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GBOB Heats 2
2nd November, 2007
Club 18, Jalan Liku, Bangsar

Congratulations, finalists of Heats 2! See you on Saturday, 3 Nov 07 same place! *** Revenge *** Benchmarx *** Poetical Kingdom

Other participating bands which were really loud but not enuff. Good show, guys! *** Deja Voodoo Spells *** Love Me Butch *** S.a.D (Systematically Avoided Disorder).

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