District 97

District 97

district-97

0

http://ladyobscure.com/portfolio/district-97/

Wed, 29 May 2013 17:48:27 +0000

hprog

Hello there,  Lady Obscure friends!

A few months ago I was listening to prog metal-based radio on Spotify and, suddenly, a very interesting song started. Heavy staccato guitars, strong rhythm base, great keyboards… it caught my attention! After a few minutes of instrumental prowess, a beautiful female voice started. This wasn’t the typical female metal singer; there was something quite special about her vocal strength. So I checked the name and went looking for more info about them on the Internet.

They are District 97, from Chicago, with American Idol alumna Leslie Hunt on vocals, Rob Clearfield on keyboards and guitar, Jim Tashjian on guitars, Patrick Mulcahy on bass and Jonathan Schang on drums. That song that caught my ear was “The man who knows your name”, from their first album, Hybrid Child. Looking for more, I found their second, and to date latest album, Trouble with machines. As special guest they had no other than John Wetton (King Crimson/ U.K. / Asia) sharing vocal duties with Leslie on the song “The perfect young man”. This, of course, made the album even more appealing to me, and I’ve heard both excellent records over and over ever since.

As a fortunate coincidence, just months after having discovered them, it was announced that they would tour Europe together with John Wetton, and that they would play in Reichenbach, Germany, some 4 hours away from where I live.

Needless to say, I contacted them and here you have now my video interview with the band after that first show in Germany. A couple of days later, the Lady Obscure herself got the chance to meet them in Zoetermeer, Holland and chat some more, but more about that in a future post 🙂

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