The saying “less is more” rang true Thursday night, when fewer bands battled for a larger audience compared with last year’s event.
Not only was there better attendance at the fifth annual UNM Battle of the Bands, but the students stayed to watch all the bands compete, said Vanessa Atler, executive director of Student Special Events.
She said after having just a few people come out to last year’s competition during the day, SSE wanted to change things up for this year’s event.
“For only having eight bands compete, there was a great mix of genres that appeared this year,” she said. “This year’s event makes me want to focus less on the band aspect of the competition next year and focus more on solo singers and musicians of all types.”
Zoology walked away with the win, while Dogbats and Gatsby came in second and third, respectively. For winning the battle, Zoology will play at Fiestas on April 21.
“We’re all about networking with different kinds of musicians,” Andrew Martinez, a Zoology MC, said. “The Battle of the Bands is always awesome because it allows us to meet a lot of other bands. It’s less about different genres and more about just playing good music.”
Dakarai McCoy, bassist for Dogbats, said it was great having a lot of students out on the dance floor.
“This is exactly what we wanted to see, coming out here tonight,” he said. “We were glad to be playing in front of so many friends and family.”
The competition was the band’s first time playing together in a formal setting, McCoy said.
Gatsby vocalist and guitarist Morgan Ching said it was great to see all the bands come together for the sake of making music.
“Music isn’t just a gathering of talent but is also a budding of personality and character,” he said.
Sean Leston, pianist for Gatsby, said the competition also gives bands great recognition in the University community.
While the students’ choice for the best band was Gatsby, the judges came to a unanimous decision for Zoology to be first place. The students’ votes, as a whole, counted as one vote when tallied alongside the judges’.
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SSE tried to keep students from leaving the competition before it was time to vote, Atler said, but many showed up at different times to only watch their favorite bands play. This makes it unclear if the final count of the student votes adequately represented the students’ decision, she said.
Phillip Torres, a Zoology MC, said he thought it was right that SSE based their final decision on both the judges’ and students’ decisions.
“When we were playing, there were a lot of people out in the crowd who had never heard of us. So it was great that we had the opportunity to spread our music at the competition and see what a new crowd had to think of us,” he said.
Torres also said a lot of friends and supporters that came out to support the band left after it played, which could have influenced the results of the voting.
Sean Trauth, promotions director of SSE, said the judges based their vote upon a variety of different criteria ranging from punctuality to professionalism and originality to overall performance quality.
“The judges also took note of how loud the crowd was at the time each band was playing,” Trauth said. “Genre was also possibly a factor in determining the winner. Because the winner gets to play at Fiestas, some of our judges might have thought that Zoology would fit better in the lineup.”
Ching said he thought Zoology did have a particularly strong stage presence when watching them play, which might have influenced the judges’ final decision.
Despite these uncertainties, Atler said members of SSE thought this year’s battle was much more successful than last year’s.
“We were very happy with the attendance this year,” Atler said. “I want to thank everybody for coming out and supporting these bands.”
