Rock Club Bringing Battle Of Bands To Attitudes

Many bands can attribute their success to the recognition that resulted from a friendly, yet serious competition between local talent in their own hometown.  The big question in Blacksburg is, are there enough local musicians around to even have a local rock scene?

The concept of a Battle of the Bands in Blacksburg is not a new one, but it is progressively getting better.  “We started the Rock Music Club to do our part to revitalize the rock music scene locally.” said Dan Domme, event coordinator and member of the Rock Music Club at Virginia Tech. “Since Bailey’s closed, the music scene in Blacksburg has pretty much died.  Attitudes has the only in-house sound-system in the area, that’s why we decided to try them for the event.  We knew the winning band would sound good there.”

The Rock Music Club at Virginia Tech will host the Battle of the Bands finals at Attitudes Bar and Café on Friday, April 18. Matt Allen,  Attitudes’ head of booking and lead sound technician, said the finals will start at 9 p.m. and the doors will open around 8 p.m. with ample parking at the adjoining Holiday Inn.  There is a $5 cover charge at the door and anyone 18 and older is welcome. 

When asked for the reason of the event, Allen said, “We asked ourselves, is the live music scene in Blacksburg dead?  Absolutely not!  There’s lots of local bands around, but they don’t get a chance to play.  The key for us is to get as many people we can in different genres.  We put the word out and within two weeks, we were booked up with a waiting list…We’ve already started working on round two for the fall.”   

Allen said they have chosen three finalists though tournament-style play involving 12 bands, three preliminary rounds, and four bands per round. 

“The last round was especially hard to judge,” Allen said.  “When you have a great metal band going up against a great hip-hop band, how do you choose?  We were force to rely heavily on originality”.

Domme agreed with the difficulties in choosing a winner.  “The margin of points in the last preliminary round was between three to four points out of 300.  It was really tough. We have had a Battle of the Bands before, but nothing quite like this one.”

The three bands scheduled to battle it out on April 18 are All Kinds of Gravity, GroovaScape, and Bitter Hill.  They offer a diverse selection of genres including approachable indie, gravity, and groove-funk style.

“This is the pinnacle of the club’s existence for the semester.” Domme said. 

It will be interesting to see how this friendly, yet serious competition will affect the presence of events sparked by the ambition of an eager community.