This past Saturday, I went to check out the Battle of the Bands contest at the Emerson Theater on 10th and Emerson in Indy. The winner of this contest gets to play at the Mayhem Festival this year, so it was a pretty epic prize.
If you don't know, the Emerson is an under 21 establishment, so the participating bands really ranged as far as the age of their members. I showed up a little late, so the first band I saw was the M80's. The members looked like they ranged from ages 14-17, but age doesn't really matter when you're fucking metal. They were excellent! Here is a video of them from the show. The sound quality is shit though cause it's from someone's cell phone.
M80s and more M80's
The Risq was another pretty cool young band, but they don't have any music up on youtube. Get some stuff up you guys! How are you going to be promoted without an example of your work? I found some music on ReverbNation.
the Risq
The next band that came on was Creed... I mean Sonic Malestorm... And they sounded like a shitty version of Creed. They couldn't even get the audience going. If this band was a bunch of kids like the previous two, I would cut them some slack, but they were a band of older dudes. A consensus going around the crowd was, "Why did you come here if you were just going to suck?" Now I really hate to trash people for doing what they like to do, but seriously, do not come to town to compete in a metal competition if you're not metal. I don't know if they were just having a bad day or what. I just don't see these guys getting anywhere. But you know what? I'm not the see all end all of metal. I am by no means an expert, or a critic, I just enjoy it. I did not enjoy this band at all. I would have loved for you to share in my disapproval, but even though I tried, I couldn't find anything of theirs online. No Facebook page, no Youtube, nothing. Were they even really there, or was the event staff just wasting time until the sound guy could fix something?
Epyon gave a good show. Sadly, the friends who came to the show with me bailed at this point to go to the bar around the corner and get some shots. Those geeks really missed out. Epyon was engaged in the music and they worked the stage. Everyone was everywhere. S
ome kid in a yellow shirt got his face busted open during a pit fight too. He looks to be ok now aside from the huge gash on his eyebrow. Epic Pit Fight Face Busting!
Epyon's facebook page.
Should This Armor Fail was fantastic. I did think that they had one too many guitarists, but that is only because one of them looked like he wasn't doing much. He's probably a very integral part of the band. Shit, he could be the one who writes all the music. I don't know! Otherwise, everyone else looked like they were into it. This is where the crowd started to really get into the whole show too, not just the pit fighters. There were more people dancing, and jumping around for this group. These guys sounded like, in my opinion, Story of the Year. I'm probably going to get a lot of shit for my opinion, but I don't care... I like Story of the Year. What is most alike was the way the singer switched between singing and screaming. A lot of the other bands were 100% screaming.
Should This Armor Fail's Facebook page.
Vires was awesome. They sounded really good together. The lead guy was pretty energetic, but the others kinda just stood there playing their instruments though. I really liked the guitarist's dragonfly shirt. That's pretty hardcore. Not sure if you know this, but dragonflies live their entire lives in about 4 days. They basically have to decide whether to eat or mate, and then they die. It's badass! Actually, I'm not sure if that's true at all. Here's a link to their
music. Fucking check them out and support their music.
Cast From Perfection is actually the band that I went to support. I have a friend in the band and he is awesome! So I went to this show to support my friend's band, and I had never heard them before, but just wow. They are amazing. They were showmen at their finest. First and foremost, and a lot of the other bands should totally learn this lesson from them, they made their vocals louder than the instruments. Hello bands everywhere! When you are playing a live show, your instruments are naturally going to be louder than your vocals. Please turn the instruments down so people can hear your fucking lyrics. Otherwise, there is no point in having lyrics at all.
Secondly, Cast From Perfection was the only band who actually successfully engaged the crowd. Encouraging them to jump around and headbang and scream and stuff, made the performance a lot of fun. My neck/shoulder region is still pretty sore from it and it's Tuesday. It's been 3 days! Also getting close to the crowd and encouraging them to air molest your guitar is pretty sweet. These guys were just really enthusiastic about being up there in front of everyone. It looked like they were having just as much fun as the crowd. And that's what you gotta look for in an artist. They have to enjoy what they do.
Check them out on Facebook
Cast From Perfection.
And here's some of their music... cause that's all that matters.
Fucking Brutal Music.
So after these guys finished playing, my friends and I left, even though there were like 3 or 4 more bands to play. But before we left, we asked around to see if we could vote for our favorites since it was a battle and everything. As it turns out, there was a judge... that's right A judge. One. Judge. One judge for like 14 bands. How the fuck are you going to only have one judge? How could that not be biased? They probably didn't even consider how many presales each band brought in. The M80's brought in like $300 from presales alone! Cast From Perfection brought in over $500. And the Creed Ripoffs brought in a whopping $0. I know this because I was able to stealthily take a picture of the ticket taker's computer screen.
So I am not sure who won, because I wasn't there, but apparently, everyone else is calling them a Pantera knock off. "There can only be one Pantera", and this is true. The whole thing was totally rigged. They should have put it to a screaming vote at the end of the night or something. And Epyon should have gotten extra points for bloodface kid.
If you attended the event, comment below. Tell me who you would have voted for, if there had actually been a vote. Or talk about the bands that I didn't get the privilege to see.
