It's Only Life | The Head Bros

It’s Only Life by The Head Bros had charm and four artists with powerful vocal control but no story to grab onto. A new production by The Head Bros, It’s Only Life is a homage to John Bucchino’s repertoire, set as a series of vignettes which follow different characters in urban environments. Or maybe they were the same characters? It was hard to tell… Thus, all of these unknowns made it difficult to get into the momentum of the show, despite the smooth musicianship of the band, who you could tell were having a great time.

There were moments when the performers and the band members looked visibly stressed which quite honestly, made me feel stressed. Maybe it was because the show started late or because of the minor technical issues or something else… either way the performers didn’t shy away from showing their nerves.

Speaking of those performers, Maddison Hutchins brought such joy and levity whenever she walked on stage; matched by her buoyant vocals. Whenever she was on stage, you couldn’t help but look at her as she was so animated. That’s not to say that her fellow performers Sean Johnston, Jade Delmiguez and Hanlon Innocent weren’t. But if there was a grading system, then Hutchins would be at a high distinction of animation, which as an audience member is what you need when there’s no plot to guide you along.

As a tribute to Bucchino, I would have loved to have had some dialogue about Bucchino’s life between the songs so that we could have had some context to the journey we were taken on. As someone who had never heard of Bucchino before, I wanted to know more about him, why these particular songs were being sung and the lives that were being sung about.

With more creative developments, I would be interested to see what The Head Bros do next with this work as it has a lot of potential and an electrifying cast.