Battles of the Bands...do you ???

[lesterpaul]

what is your stance on these ....my band was in a "competition"this past weekend for a spot to play the side stage at th local shed for Brooks and Dunn ...you had to send in an original song for them to pick by and the contest called for 2 orig and 1 cover which i thought was cool ....anyway my take on this is the radio station comes out smelling like a rose in this deal ...the venue that it took place at had to buy or at least got exposure on the radio then whatever money spent they recouped in the sales during the event (which they did alot of ) ....the bands got nothing, we got to play a few songs for some exposure through an awesome sound system ,but really nothing else i at least thought we could get some station swag ...coincidentally the same band that won this year won last time they held this deal ,they said they didn't even go backstage ,they played their 30 or 40 , minutes and got to see the show from the crowd .....don't get me wrong i had a great time and i would do it again it was good fun ,just thought i'd throw out a topic for for conversation

 

[JKestle]

memories...

I don't mind the idea of the "Battle of the Bands", mostly because I've won one and it felt great (of course I also lost a couple).

The satisfaction of bragging rights can go a long way. I also understand your subtle point, the bands break their backs for these events and radio stations and their rewards don't really seem to be up to snuff...exposure exsmosure! Give me recording time at least!

That being said, If I were to enter into another one I would try not to take it seriously, relax, and have a good night no matter what the outcome.

 

[lesterpaul]

oh i had a great time we met the other bands and the ones that won are awesome and i knew going in we were the 10 point underdog....we were in one a few years back where we got to play a whole set (30mins) and they had prizes all the way back to 4th which we won as honorable mention it awarded 2 hrs. studio time, it was donated by one of the sponsors ...

 

[AdrianFly]

Ehhhh.. the band I was in won one of those stupid battle of the bands and got to play the "big stage" opening for <insert lazy, unmotivated, drugged out grunge band here>.

Can you say "radio politics?" So corrupt..the ghouls.. so evil..so sinister!!
Sandbagging should be banned.

Good experience that you can adapt to the real world of music...if you ..
pay attention and most bands don't.

 

[Scottgman]

My old band played in one a few years ago. The first prize was a pretty nice package-- significant studio time and other goodies. It was a private kind of deal not affiliated with any radio stations. We had to sell our own tickets and to even qualify to enter the battle, we had to sell x number of tickets. That really turned me off to the whole idea, but our singer was determined to enter this contest so he did most of the selling. The producer/promoter of the event was an idiot and scheduled it on a Saturday afternoon—the same day of the OU/Nebraska college football game. Here in Norman, OK, OU football is a BIG deal. Especially when OU plays Nebraska. How anybody living in Norman could overlook this major detail is beyond me. As you might expect, attendance was horrible—the crowd noise was provided by crickets. On top of it all, we were the first band to play out of about 20 bands.

Turns out we didn’t even place. But after the event, the promoter/producer apologized big time to us and told us we should have won. Two of the judges told us the same thing. They had graded us lower since we were the first band—then after enduring 19 other bands ranging from really bad to decent, they realized we were the best band that day. But since they already scored our performance, they decided to give the win to someone else. I’ll never again get involved in a Battle of the Bands event like that one.

One thing I’ve noticed around here is that when a band wins a Battle of the Bands contest, the other local bands get real jealous and start bashing that band on message boards, etc. It’s pretty interesting. You may get some exposure/goodies from winning, but you are practically guaranteed to have every other band in town hate you.

 

[AdrianFly]

One thing I’ve noticed around here is that when a band wins a Battle of the Bands contest, the other local bands get real jealous and start bashing that band on message boards, etc. It’s pretty interesting. You may get some exposure/goodies from winning, but you are practically guaranteed to have every other band in town hate you.

That says alot about the other bands. A rotten attitude won't get you very far in the music biz. (I wouldn't think anyway)

 

[lesterpaul]

One thing I’ve noticed around here is that when a band wins a Battle of the Bands contest, the other local bands get real jealous and start bashing that band on message boards, etc. It’s pretty interesting. You may get some exposure/goodies from winning, but you are practically guaranteed to have every other band in town hate you.

well there was one guy who was really good and we just knew he was going to take it all i mean th band showed up then he rides in he had an entourage i mean it wreaked of setup but he came in third the 2 best bands one i was really glad how it turned out ,like i said before we were big underdogs it was a country battle, and for the most part we're rock (Heavy rock) but we write over a wide range so we turned in a song and got entered BUT the 2 bands that placed first and second man you couldn't have picked nicer guys you'll never hear me say a bad word about them ....

but more to your point in th quote there are some guys that we know and used to play with when my current band dtarted gigging they joined up to come "gunning" for us.... i thought it very funny i mean they kick our ass technically, it might as well been EVH gunning for Cobain... we just happen to be getting some gigs