The whole task seems rather immense to me: sift through endless applicants and come up with a new batch of local talent and present to the music industry – and to be at that for 13 years! The team at TNL Radio needs to be congratulated for such unswerving commitment to contributing to the local music scene. In what was a stellar finale, (for which the weather sure seemed to hold back) five soloists and bands took over the stage last Friday 26th, at the Viharamahadevi Amphitheatre.
The night kicked off with the opening act by last year’s winning band Magician’s Toolbox. As the finalists came out one after another thereafter crowds got going. The line up of finalists was as follows:
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Bands: Area 51, Symphony Experiment X-rays, Audacity, Mash and Thoughtless
Soloists: Gyles, Chithru, Nathan, Viroshan and Rochelle
TNL SpinOff in its inaugural session this year, featured the two Djs Rami (Ramindu Ranasinghe) and Electro Mechanic (Ravi Perera) at the Finals. SpinOff has been launched as an after party concept to Onstage, which provides a platform for the growing number of DJs as Onstage does the same for vocalists and bands.
The finals also featured performances by Thilak Dias, Kamal Perera, Andrew Obeysekera (of Stigmata), and Harshan Gallage (of Thriloka) who make up the ‘Superband’, Soloists’ backing band for Season 13, Willie's Jeep and the winners of TNL Onstage 2012 Magician’s Toolbox and Melissa Pereira.
It must have been tough to judge; (I know most judges use such clichés just before the results are announced) the contestants were indeed well up to or beyond standard.
Apart from those who walked away with awards, Gyles Dharmaratne ordered shouts and hoots from the audience (let me add, a certain section of it in particular!), with great covers of When I Was Your Man and Maroon 5’s Sunday Morning.
Shout out to all the finalists actually for the performances. Chithru was sure a favourite of many. There was a variety in genre which was great to witness, and it scattered any notion of stereotyping the event as a narrow platform catering to particular genres alone.
While the drive behind Onstage is highly commendable and there’s nothing to complain about the performances on stage, a better consciousness on the part of the audience of the fact that they were present there to cheer on local talent may have been desirable.
This season, Ashanthi's School of Music has been on board as the Official Music School, training soloists and band vocalists while Tareeq Musafer and the DJ Academy was the Official Consultant for the SpinOff category.
The following walked away with titles and prizes at Season 13. Some of them shared with Daily Mirror Life what it was like to be part of the experience, if they anticipated such success in the journey, why they think they ended up successful and further plans.
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‘Best Soloist’ - Nathan: “This was my first ever competition. Hence, the excitement and the nervousness were unbelievable. I got to meet some amazing people with such great talent but most of all it taught me to push myself to the edge. This is an experience I would cherish my whole life and would recommend any up and coming musician to take. I never thought I'd be the winner for this year's solo category. When I sent my demo to TNL all I thought was that I’m going to give it my best! Each and every round I faced I made sure I choose songs that pushed me right to the edge which made it even more exciting. I am grateful to TNL for giving me this platform which I am sure will help me to get to where I want to be. By next year I’m hoping to put out an album and it's going to be mostly in acoustic. Also I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family including Shavindra and Viroshan, Derek Wikramanayake and everyone else for their support and believing in me! It's an amazing feeling to be the first!! And I’m sure everyone should take that bold step to be the first in whichever you are good at!!!”
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Best Band: Audacity (Sushmita Wijeyaratna, Sachiko Jayaratne, Rushenka Jayasuriya, Lydia Goonetilleke, Tihara Gunawardena, Suhashana Wijayaratna, Ashna Jeevaratnam, Amitha Pilapitiya) “It has been an amazing experience so far, as a band Onstage brought us closer. We are more like a family than a band. It is the greatest feeling in the world to win something. Feels like we are on cloud nine and would not want to leave it when we do get there.”
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Runner up (Solo category): Chithru: “The experience has been simply amazing. Firstly I wish to thank TNL for organizing this as it provided a great platform for the local talents. When I first sang at the prelis, I didn't have a massive fan base as I was new to this. However at the finals the crowd response just blew me away. Specially for my second song 'I will always love you'll by Whitney Houston. So it clearly is an unforgettable journey and I'm glad I decided to take part. To be honest no I did not expect to get this far. When I first started my singing was limited to church and my YouTube videos. I wasn't hoping to apply until my friends heard my cover of Power of Love and encouraged me to do so. I applied the day before the closing date. I gradually improved, made it to the finals and ended up being runner up! Hard work and determination were key. I need to credit few people for my success. First would be my vocal trainer Mr. Andre David. From the amateur YouTube singer, transformed me to the person you witnessed at the finale of onstage within a short period of time. I'll be always indebted to him. Then my biggest fans, Amma and Thaththa. Then Pranil & Ryan. Then the backing band, Willies Jeep who did a splendid job. Last but not least everyone who supported me. I'm planning to release few originals in the near future as I did receive a great response to my song "If I". I will definitely continue singing and maybe one day collaborate with the Onstage finalists and do something great!”
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Runners up: Symphony Experiment X-rays (Kanishka Peiris, Mike de Zilva, Buddhi de Silva, Charith Fernando, Jayalakshitha Neomal): “Onstage was a very great experience. Met a lot of new friends and saw some mind blowing talent. Yes, we expected to get this far. Our success was due to hard work, dedication and commitment put in by all of us, Practice makes perfect. We’ll officially starting work on our album, recordings will commence soon as well as we have some new material that we haven't put out as yet so will start work on that as well.”
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Winner of TNL SpinOff: Rami (Ramindu Ranasinghe): “I would to thank TNL Radio for introducing this sub-event SpinOff. It was a wonderful experience battling it out among other Djs, and to bring my style of playing it was an honour. All in all it was an amazing experience to be a part of the first ever SpinOff and to have won it is a blessing. I would attribute my success to a history of Djs that I learned from, local to international. I created my own-style of mixing records, I use a lot of pause breaks, acapellas & break beats. It took a long time and patients to create the routines I played, but all in all it was practice that made it cleaner. I’m glad I got exposed to a lot of international turntablist, the most inspirational one would be my late friend DJ AM. What’s Next: Tough one. I’m planning on playing with a Drummer, I wanna bring the whole Dj vs Drummer concept.”
Pics by Samantha Perera
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0 Comments
Gemba says:
Jul 31, 2013 at 12:00 amWonderful to see our young Sri Lankan talent on display and to see young people enjoying themselves at a concert. Way to go - more power to them.