JC
Our New Favourite Band Injects Us With (Greased) Lightning!
- MUSIC FOCUS: Beauty School Dropout.
- ACTIVITY FOCUS: Practise the skills needed to answer question 3 of AQA’s GCSE Language Paper 2. Relevant to any question testing your language analysis.
Beauty School Dropout, Islington Academy
There’s nothing more exhilarating than falling in love with a new band: the sudden and all-consuming frenzy of feelings, the dizzying realisation that you’re not alone on this planet, the urgent desire to tell someone that you’ve discovered something akin to oxygen. This is the experience for anyone seeing Beauty School Dropout tonight.
From the very moment that singer Colie Hutzler arrives on stage, we’re intoxicated. By both the drama of his entrance and by the poetry of it. An outcast in strikingly oversized hoodie, he sobs the opening lyrics of ‘I Loved You’ into his microphone – it’s an electric moment, and one which makes everyone in the audience feel as if the singer’s injected them with lightning.
With the rest of the band now on stage, Beauty School Dropout’s songs become furious. The Californian outfit are impressively tight and perhaps their greatest magic trick is the way they manage to sound as raw as they do rehearsed. There’s a roughness to this unit that ensures ‘WE MADE PLANS & GOD LAUGHED’ sounds more desperate live than it does on record, a toughness that means ‘FREAK’ hits less like a radio smash and more like a smash in the face.
Note, too, Colie’s symbolic shedding of that enormous hoodie. Amongst his people, the frontman unleashes his true self. There’s no need to hide beneath layers anymore. It’s a moment of catharsis the audience can share in. Having searched high and low for a band that can change the world – in the same way that The Strokes or My Chemical Romance once did – everyone present feels purged. This is love.
ACTIVITY 1
How does the writer use language to describe Beauty School Dropout and the experience of watching them?
Aim to write 3 paragraphs, exploring 3 different aspects of the experience.
You may wish to start each paragraph with these phrases:
- Firstly, the writer notes that…
- The writer also suggests…
- Finally, the writer describes the experience as…
There are some further ideas below the picture. Only scroll down if you feel you would benefit from some further direction.
Directly below, you’ll find one approach to answering the question. The three sentence starters have been completed for you (although, of course, these are not the only ideas you could have come up with) and quotes that connect with each of those now completed sentences have been colour-coded accordingly. You only need one quote per paragraph, although if you aren’t able to analyse one quote in enough depth, then you may wish to link to a second quote.
How does the writer use language to describe Beauty School Dropout and the experience of watching them?
- Firstly, the writer notes that Beauty School Dropout are an important band.
- The writer also suggests the experience of watching them ins powerful.
- Finally, the writer describes the experience as special
Beauty School Dropout, Islington Academy
There’s nothing more exhilarating than falling in love with a new band: the sudden and all-consuming frenzy of feelings, the dizzying realisation that you’re not alone on this planet, the urgent desire to tell someone that you’ve discovered something akin to oxygen. This is the experience for anyone seeing Beauty School Dropout tonight.
From the very moment that singer Colie Hutzler arrives on stage, we’re intoxicated. By both the drama of his entrance and by the poetry of it. An outcast in over-sized hoodie, he sobs the opening lyrics of ‘I Loved You’ into his microphone – it’s an electric moment, and one which makes everyone in the audience feel as if the singer’s injected them with lightning.
With the rest of the band now on stage, Beauty School Dropout’s songs become furious. The Californian outfit are impressively tight and perhaps their greatest magic trick is the way they manage to sound as raw as they do rehearsed. There’s a roughness to this unit that ensures ‘WE MADE PLANS & GOD LAUGHED’ sounds more desperate live than it does on record, a toughness that means ‘FREAK’ hits less like a radio smash and more like a smash in the face.
Note, too, Colie’s symbolic shedding of that enormous hoodie. Amongst his people, the frontman unleashes his true self. There’s no need to hide beneath layers anymore. It’s a moment of catharsis the audience can share in. Having searched high and low for a band that can change the world – in the same way that The Strokes or My Chemical Romance once did – everyone present feels purged. This is love.
Please do send your own writing in. We want to publish the most exciting writing and offer advice.
Beauty School Dropout were on tour with Maggie Lindemann. Check out one of our Maggie lessons right here!
The incredible live shot was taken by When The Horn Blows.