‘Clash of the Cover Bands’ Recap: Like Watching U2, Coldplay in Concert
Casey Durkin/E! Entertainment Reading Time: 3 minutes
Clash of the Cover Bands premiered on October 13, and it definitely lived up to expectations. The show began by expressing how it is like a love letter to the groups that created music popular today. The video montage was appropriately set to “Don’t Stop me Now” by Queen. There were videos of the bands performing, along with a few of our celebrity panelists.
The first episode is about stadium rockers, which panelist Adam Lambert knows all about considering he is the current lead singer of Queen. The bands were introduced with biography videos that shared the ins and outs of their career up to this point.
This episode began with Unforgettable Fire, a U2 cover band. They sang “Where the Streets Have no Name.” There was a lot of energy behind their performance, but the lead singer held the stage. All three of the judges gave great feedback to this group, but Lambert shared that he wanted it to be more of a full band experience. Their lead singer did great, but the rest of the band needed to step up to meet his power.
Lead Singer’s Stage Presence is Almost Identical to Chris Martin
Against Unforgettable Fire was the Coldplay cover band, Fix You. They sang “Clocks” on the Clash of the Cover Bands stage. They gave a similar performance to their competitor, but the judges seemed to be more intrigued with theirs. Ester Dean told the group that they were great at the entertaining aspect of this performance. Afterward, Meghan Trainor told the band that their stage presence was almost spot on. Especially the lead singer pretending to fly around the stage like Chris Martin.
After both groups separately performed, they come back to the stage in the battle rounds. Before this round Fix You was coached by Kuk Harrell. Harrell is a singer, vocal producer and arranger. During their coaching session he helped them figure out the differences between their cover and the original song. Viewers saw the group taking the song a step up.
Unforgettable Fire met with Ray Leeper to bring their performance to the next level. He’s worked with Elton John, Snoop Dogg, Cher, and more. Leeper agreed that the band wasn’t doing enough to portray U2. He helped the band meet the lead singer’s power behind the performance.
After watching the coaching round it’s obvious that each band had different issues. Considering the bands had different issues the show provided coaches that would help them specifically with their improvement. There’s a lot to be said about that aspect of this show.
Unforgettable Fire Battles Battles Against Fix You
In the battle round, the groups sing head-to-head to help the judges determine who receives the $10,000 award at the end of the show. In this round of the competition, the bands went back and forth singing different songs from their respective groups. There were so many hits in this battle that I was dancing around my room to these tunes.
“Both of you guys are giving us what we’ve been missing for almost two years,” said Dean. “We’ve been wanting to hear songs, we’ve been wanting to see performances and tonight I see U2 and Coldplay.”
Dean shared that their battles made her feel like she wasn’t at a cover band performance anymore. After stating that these groups are neck and neck the judges decided that Unforgettable Fire as U2 won $10,000 tonight in the Clash of the Cover Bands premiere. They are officially the first group in the running to win the overall title at the end of the season.
Fix You should have won! The lead singer of Fire looked like Bono and that is the ONLY thing the group had going for them.