Walküre on Mars

Live Review

Nov 20

High-powered vocals fueled Walk On Mars’ attack at the Midway Cafe matinee show on Saturday, 19 November 2022. Reverie, The New Noise, Jeju filled out the bill in a Berklee College of Music love orgy.

One of the supreme blessings of living in or around Boston, Massachusetts is the abundance of musical energy flowing through the school that goes by the name of Berklee College of Music. The students imbue the city with a music loving spirit that fills our venues with skilled performers and discerning fans. To help students along their musical journey, Berklee boasts a world class faculty, curriculum, and resources. But even the best of the best programs can come up short in certain respects. Here are some numbers…

The private music college counted 7,177 undergraduate (plus, 766 graduate) students in the ‘21/22 academic year.

At their disposal were 350 ensemble and practice rooms. We don’t know the breakdown between ‘ensemble’ versus ‘practice’ (does this mean ‘solo’?) rooms, but let’s just average it out and stipulate that every room can accommodate three students.

Let’s also stipulate 4 hours of practice for each student per day. If that’s a touch high, let us know in the comments. Let’s also suppose the rooms are open 24 hours per day, and that each hourly slot is equally desirable. That’s certainly false, but let’s be generous.

Given the above numbers, 7,943 (7,177 + 766) students will need 31,772 (7,943 x 4) hours of practice time per day.

How many hours of practice time can the existing ensemble and practice spaces offer?

Given the above number, 350 rooms can offer 25,200 (350 x 3 x 24) hours of practice time per day.

You see where we’re going with this…

Subtract the amount of practice hours Berklee students need from the amount of practice hours that Berklee can offer per day, and you arrive at a deficit of 6,572 hours.

To summarize: (350 x 3 x 24) - ((7,177 + 766) x 4) = -6,572.

That’s 6,572 hours of practice time PER DAY that the student body needs to pull out of its ass in order to stay sharp.

Where to find all those missing hours? Hellooooooo, Midway Cafe!

Jeju shouted out Berklee College of Music during its set. The five-piece consisted of two guitars, one bass, drums, and the frontman handling vocals (with the occasional guitar swap). There was no shortage of musicianship. The musical identity of the band seemed hard to decipher, stretching itself in various directions, but nothing Jeju played would have sounded out of place coming out of the loudspeakers at a local bar & grill marketed at 18 to 34-year olds.

The New Noise alternated pop punk punch with alt rock breakdowns. They used the pop punk verses to wind up the crowd and the alt rock moments to wind them back down. The frontman noted the recent cold snap was wreaking havoc with their guitars’ tuning. Sure, it was cold in Boston Saturday afternoon, but not as cold as Calgary.

Walk On Mars? More like Walküre on Mars, amirite? The standout band of the bill boasted a Brunnhilda of a belter by the name of Mary Jo. The five-piece played a combination of originals and covers, which steered toward rock n roll classics. The originals might need a little more time in the oven, but the musicianship on the covers demonstrated that the players have all the requisite chops to cook that meal when the time comes. A highlight of the set was the cover of Aerosmith’s “Dream On”. As soon as you hear those first guitar notes, you know where the ship is sailing. The only question was whether Mary Jo had the vocal cojones to hit those final falsetto “Dream on!” refrains located in the upper stratosphere. She does and she did.

Reverie closed out the bill with a seven-piece party rock vibe. At the outset of their first song, the fronter asked the crowd if it was “ready to rock?” Ready or not, here Reverie came with a spirited mix of Parliament Funkadelic-meets-hair metal.

Matinee complete, everyone walked away a winner. The Midway Cafe crowd enjoyed some early hours entertainment. And the students logged some practice time. Assuming each member of each band was a Berklee student, we can knock a total of 21-hours of practice time off the College’s practice hours deficit. That’s worth something. If that keeps adding up, maybe Midway Cafe should consider sending a bill to President Muhl’s office?