Classified

Classified, a newly emerging four-piece Irish rock band, have spent the last two years tirelessly writing songs and honing their live act.

In keeping with several hard set rules they established early for themselves, they have been very selective in what shows to perform, choosing only those that would benefit their experience of live performance and would expose their music to greater numbers of people. While thoroughly enjoying every performance, they have never gigged just to gig.

As a result, most of their time has been spent ensuring that each song is as strong as it can be and their combination of catchy, melodic chords, universal themes and natural charisma gives them a good solid base from which to create. Striking a fine balance between pop-rock and alternative, this band works hard to create good quality uplifting songs that will translate as well on stage before a live audience as they will when mastered on a professional recording. Having dedicated the past year to an intensive song writing process, Classified have tried to keep to one overriding theme - whether a song is about love, friendship, hardship or desperation. Jean Paul Richter said, “Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life,” and, in these difficult times, Classifieds' sound has evolved to capture the one essence needed in the world today – hope.

Throughout 2008, Classified limited their live shows to playing only occasional supports to other bands in an effort to learn what will work and what will not work live. In essence, they were able to gain fans by playing their music to audiences with relatively similar musical tastes whilst learning as they went along.

However, an opportunity arose in April 2008 that the band couldn’t refuse. As a result of a large Asian following that developed from their Myspace page, an invitation was issued by Sunglow Entertainment Limited to play nine performances in Century Park, Shanghai as part of the annual International Music Carnival. As one of only three western groups to perform there, this virtually unknown band had the unique opportunity to travel halfway across the globe and play at an outdoor festival to a large and appreciative crowd.

Since then the band have begun to play venues in Dublin and Limerick and supported Aslan at The Volvo Ocean Race Stopover Festival in Galway. This was the biggest West of Ireland event of the year and the audience was estimated to have been between 5,000 and 10,000 strong.

With these experiences under their belts, and confident of their ability to entertain a large crowd, the bands goal for the next year is to maintain and to further develop their international fan base through Myspace, release an EP online at the end of the summer and to gig extensively, bringing their music to as many people as possible.