The two sororities (actually, i think they're called social clubs at Carey to distinguish from any professional groups) at the college i graduated from used a Battle of the Bands as one of their fund-raisers for three years (it had to be discontinued because turn-out was bad--not for the audience, but for the bands who paid their entry fees).

The first year, they had primarily music faculty as judges, most especially the resident theory prof (who started out in music a few decades back as a rock band drummer) and our Croatian-born, Austrian-trained, guitar prof. Naturally the judges' opinions on stage presence and musicality differed from those of the attending students. College students tend to give more credit for stage presence and raw entertainment value, so i think few present were happy with the judges' results.

Consequently, students were judges the next year, though an attempt was still made to use only those with some insight into what makes a decent band. The main two judges were the student paper's music critic (a cynic, to say the least) and a classical guitar major (who, conveniently, played in a punk band at home on weekends). These opinions were SOMETHING. End result of the competition was that the guitar student skyrocketed a solo artist's scores to keep Nub (the critic) from letting a really lousy act who was more funny than musical win. Needless to say, as good as one guy can be, few thought it was right for him to win a battle of BANDS.

Third year stunk, with two bands and about 15 in the audience, outside in the sun, on a day hot enough to melt crayons on the tablecloths (those of us present were most entertained by our own colored wax art on the tables). So Carey's annual battle of the bands was canned.

But the memorable and meaningful moment, to me, out of all three years, was after the second year, when the bands got their comment sheets fromt the judges. Pat, the guitarist-judge found the bands and made sure they understood his comments and got something meaningful out of the experience. The most memorable advice our critic-judge had was for one lead singer not to use fake tattoos (as if it weren't merely a joke to begin with).

No, that was the second-most memorable moment. The best was a female bass player that same year running around backstage before her band went on, crying, "Has anyone seen my boyfriend? I need him to tune my bass!"

Mi "Female bass players? Good. Losers of any persuasion who can't frikkin' TUNE THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTS???!!!!!!!11 Er, bad." ke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~