The Blackbelts and the "Infamous" Surface Unsigned Festival

Last night we managed to somehow get through to the Semi Finals, despite a gig full of disasters, only having 11 "fans" there and having next to no text votes. It seems that a majority of the Audience voted for us and we got the industry votes too!!

I know how a lot of you feel about battle of the bands but we are pretty damn chuffed about this cos the competition was fierce last night. Lots of awesome talent around the midlands!!

The Semi finals are on the 24th July at the Asylum in Brum. More details to come!

Hey Mark, good luck at the Surface Unsigned semis mate!
We're playing just round the corner same night (Actress & Bishop).
If we can't get over to you, let me know the crack on the text voting and I'll get on that.

How did you do in the Semis Mark?

we didn't get through, we fell foul to the whole mates vote thing. We got through the other rounds from the industry votes, but this time they only went on audience and text votes. We are still pretty damn chuffed to have gotten through to the semi's and we played a blinder too. best we have ever played.

The Asylum is an awesome venue!!

Just got this review from the gig ......

The second band of the night was coventry based four piece the blackbelts, they've got a sharply contemporary alternative rock-punk direction, brooding with emotion and charged with energy, its a sound that really works well for this band. Their set started with a bang tonight and instantly their energy and stage presence filled the huge stage at the asylum. Fast beats and hard hitting guitar parts fitted right in with fast power vocals from geordie and mark and proved to fill a great sets worth of material

Cool, sounds like you've really settled in with the new guy, are you doign anymore gigs before September 21st?

yeah it was a shame going out like but that semi really was a case of who brought the most people, top four bands in terms of votes went before the judge to decide who went through, so if you didn't bother bringing all your family and stuff to vote and line their pockets (saw loads of grannies there!) you had no chance, was mint to play on a massive stage like, great sound and lighting too, nice to get a cool review to stick on the myspace and hopefully some good piccies.

are you doign anymore gigs before September 21st?

We're all off on our summer hols over the next month or so, so we're having a blackbelt summer break, I think we've earned it with a busy few months of drummer integration and gigs, the new term begins late september/early october where we'll get stuck back into it and hopefully spread our wings a little to do a few out of town gigs.