(photo: Nicky Gendreau) – After four months of voting and preperation, the 2010 Choice Awards are now another great night firmly planted in the Augusta music history books.  When all is said and done one can only guess how will this particular Choice Awards be remembered.

For me personally, this was one of the smoothest and more enjoyable Choice Awards.  Aside from a last-minute video issue, taken care of by Chris “Guapo” Anderson, the event itself went off without a hitch and if memory serves me correctly, even ended a little ahead of schedule.  Thanks has to be given to Coco Rubio and the staff at Sky City for helping to make this year’s show incredible.  For the first time the video presentation was show on the stage and from what I’ve been told, made for an incredible addition to the music and awards presentations.

There were many things that factored into this being a great night but of course at the end of the day the main one was of course the music.  Every year in February we gather in a show of love and support for each other and to give thanks to the music and this year was no different.  And man what a night of music it was!

My Instant Lunch kicked off the night with half the band onstage and the other half marching in from the back of the room pounding drums.    It was the perfect way to give notice that the night was about to begin and boy did it kick in!  It also served notice that the band were prepared to dismiss all the naysayers who claimed that My Instant Lunch, while spot on musically, lacked in visual onstage presentation.  If anyone left still feeling that the guys couldn’t deliver an energetic performance, they must have either arrived late or spent the entire set in the toilet.    Theirs was about as good a set as I’ve seen on any Augusta stage during my time covering music.  Winning the award for favorite new Augusta band was no fluke – these guys bring it live.

From their the great music continued as Bleeding Counterfeit shook the room with a set of incredible soulful rock that had the crowd at Sky City dancing and singing along.  This is the third performance that I’ve seen by these guys in the past couple of months and somehow they manage to top themselves each time.  There has been no doubting the talent in this band and it’s been amazing to watch it all come together for these guys.  It’s not easy to take heartfelt songs and catchy melodies and present them in a way that grabs you and refuses to let go and Bleeding Counterfeit pull it off magnificently.  Winning the award for fave Augusta rock band definitely well deserved.

I’ve been fortunate enough to catch 48Volt live in just about every way possible.  As a straight up five-piece, onstage with extra percussion and strings, but I had yet to see them stripped down to the bare essentials and totally acoustic.  Leave it to these area Americana rockers to go “unplugged” in the middle of some high-powered full band performances and come out unscathed.  These guys continue to prove time and time again that they are fearless on any stage setting and within any band lineup.  Proof that good songs mixed with solid musicianship still remain the key to any live performance.  That 48Volt came out on top in the fave Americana.Country artist award category is no surprise. 

Since their arrival on the scene few have had to convince me of the incredible power and precision of Augusta metal band L.i.E. yet somehow they still manage to catch me by surprise just about the time I think I have them figured out.  These guys have manage to take metal and inject it with a weird bunch of non-metal influences to create a sound that is not only hard-hitting but in some ways catchy as well.  Their new tune “Sorry, we didn’t mean to invite the band that threatened to inject you with AIDS” had me feeling like I did when I used crank my Anthrax records really loud when I was young enthusiastic teenager!  I haven’t been a regular listener of metal in a long time yet I have to say that I have become a fan of L.i.E. and it’s not hard to understand why.  The band didn’t walk away with with awards for fave song, hard rock band, and band for nothing – L.i.E. are the real deal.

Now I had never seen Aralic live before and while I wasn’t sure what to expect, knowing in advance that they had been voted fave all-ages band I felt it would be a travesty to not include them in this year’s show.  To be honest I’m still a bit unsure about these guys but like I mentioned earlier, I am not a regular listener of metal and Aralicis definitely metal.  The metalheads in attendance dug these guys and musically I found them to be compelling but ironically my favorite thing about them might be that they came off very tongue-in-cheek.  I could be wrong here but I spent their entire set laughing at the frontman’s in between song banter and facial expressions.  Not sure if that is the response they normally aim for but then again I am an old rocker who wouldn’t know a good death metal band from a crappy one. 

When all was said and done and I was sitting at Dennys trying to get my hearing back between sips of diet cherry soda and chuckles from my wife Jeannie, it was decided that once again the Choice Awards were a success.  When you can have a conversation with the one you love that contains a multitude of “and what about when…” comments despite being tired and it being 3am then you know you’ve just experienced something special.  To reminisce about seeing people you love dearly and meeting people that instantly make an impression just moments after doing so is always a beautiful thing.   To be able to take even a few hours out of the day and set aside all of life’s ills and be surrounded by family, and yes within this music scene exists a family, is a blessing.   The awards themselves are merely shaped pieces of plexiglass, a symbol to express something much larger and greater.  Within these little pieces of engraved plexiglass exist a lifetime of love and memories that no matter where we all go from here, we can carry with us and no one can ever take away.  I know for me personally, when I first look at the awards each year before they are handed out, I am taken aback by what they mean to me.  And when I see the faces of everyone when they are presented one-by-one I instantly feel what they mean to everyone else as well.  It makes being a part of this special family mean even more, if that is even possible.  My only remaining hope is that future generations are able to feel the love that we feel each and every time we gather in venues across the CSRA in support of each other.  It is not just a love reserved for the Choice Awards.  It is a mutual love and respect that we feel each and every time a lokal band hits the stage in the greatest music scene in the stage of Georgia.

Much love and thanks to you all…your brother in arms,

Stoney