2004 SCAD Battle of the Bands
Summary
On Friday, April 2nd, SCAD had their annual Battle of the Bands. That's where Jay was going to school at the time, so he invited me to come down and play guitar in his band, Dethkar 2000.
The lineup was:
Jay O'Meara - guitar, vocals
Elaine DuPont - drums
Billy O'Meara - bass
Me - guitar, backup vocals
Dethkar was the first band to perform, and I'm not sure if going first helped us or hurt us. Our first song was Because, it's Midnite by Limozeen. If you have no idea who Limozeen is, you need to check out homestarrunner.com more often. Anyway, I think it sounded pretty Replica Celine Handbags good.
Our second song was a Led Zeppelin cover, Immigrant Song. This one didn't sound that good, plus none of us was sure exactly when it ended. Oh well, I never really liked this song anyway.
The last song was She-Wolf by Megadeth. In case you haven't noticed by now, Jay picked the songs that we did :) . While I was tuning my guitar right before this song, I accidentally bumped my volume knob from 2 up to 7... so when I started playing, it sounded awful. But Jay covered for me, and once I turned my amp back Replica Hermes Handbags down, the rest of the song sounded pretty good. Plus, it ends with a sweet dual guitar solo.
After we were finished, we watched the other bands perform:
2. Arcasia Red
Musically, these guys were okay - their songs were kinda punkish, and the singer just screamed the whole time rather than singing. But they had a ton of energy, which Dethkar was kinda lacking (well, just me - I just kinda stood there the whole time).
3. Technicolor Stallions
Not only were these guys hilarious, but they had a guitarist that was unbelievable. Double-handed finger-tapping solos and stuff... really good. The bassist was really funny;Balenciaga Replica Handbags he came out wearing a sleeveless leather vest, ski pants, and cowboy boots, and he kept shaking his butt for the audience and using his bass like a machine gun.
4. I'm Milton, Your Brand New Son
I'm glad these guys were here, because no one could say Dethkar had the worst band name. It was a guy playing an acoustic guitar, and a girl playing keyboards. I felt bad because they plugged his acoustic into my amp, which I had turned off when I left the stage... so he played half of the first song with no volume.
5. Puma Reflex
Puma Reflex was a techno band with two guys and a girl. It took them forever to set up all their gear, and then they didn't sound that good. Elaine heard them during soundcheck and said they were much better then.
6. Forever Down
This was just one guy playing an acoustic. I didn't hear most of his set (I was upstairs tuning my guitar in case we made it to the second round), but the parts I did hear were pretty boring... he had an okay voice though.
7. Pacifier
When I first heard them, I thought they were a Sublime cover band... but I asked someone and he said that they were playing just original songs. Still, they sounded okay.
After the first round, the judges chose Fendi Replica Bags 4 bands to go on to the second round. They chose Arcasia Red, Technicolor Stallions, Pacifier, and... Forever Down!? I'm really not sure why the judges picked him. Anyway, the first three bands went out and each did another song, they all sounded pretty much the same as before. Then Forever Down went out, and said "I'm not going to do an original, I'm just gonna do something fun." Then he played Hey Ya! by Outkast on his acoustic, while the guys from Arcasia Red danced in the background. As you've probably guessed by now, Forever Down was the overall winner. He went out and did another "fun" song, a song he called "The Cover Song" because it was a medley of Closing Time, Semi-Charmed Life, etc. Meanwhile, the other bands backstage were all thinking "we lost to this!?".
I know that probably sounds bitter, but I'm honestly not. It really was a lot of fun traveling down to Georgia with Billy and performing in front of all those people. It would have been nice to at least make the final round, and it would have been even nicer to not lose to someone who played "The Cover Song" as an encore, but overall we did have a great time.
Pictures
Videos and MP3s
Amazingly, no one wanted to drive 12 hours down to Georgia with us to watch the show. But fortunately, a friend of Jay's was nice enough to videotape us, and then encode the video.
1. Because, it's Midnite
Quicktime Video (72.0 mb)
Windows Media Video (11.1 mb)
MP3 Audio (3.5 mb)
2. Immigrant Song
Quicktime Video (78.0 mb)
Windows Media Video (10.6 mb)
MP3 Audio (3.7 mb)
3. She-Wolf
Quicktime Video (150 mb)
Windows Media Video (20.2 mb)
MP3 Audio (4.8 mb)
Back to my home page