White Rose hosts Battle of Bands preliminaries

The Battle of Bands preliminaries were held March 20 atRiedy’s White Rose Caf in downtown Charlotte; the winning group goes on tocompete at the Battle of Bands this summer at the Ionia Free Fair on July 23.

Riedy’s White Rose Caf is a pleasant two-storybar/restaurant. The contest was held upstairs in a large rectangular room withred brick walls and high ceilings. It was not built for optimal acousticproperties.

The first band, Bluewater, took the stage at about 8:30 p.m.They were actually a duo of two guitarist/singers that played acoustic guitarswith no additional instruments backing them up. They weren’t bad, but TenaciousD they were not.

In all fairness, I have to say that I couldn’t make out aword they sang in any of their songs. They may have been better than I thoughtbut whomever was working the mixer board couldn’t seem to get the microphonelevels right, and those brick walls weren’t helping. Also, the people in thecrowd were all talking to each other and were as loud as the band. This firstduo was a bit out of place, considering the bands that followed. But it was adecent effort on their part.

Batteries Not Included was the second band to take the stage. Theyopened with a pretty good rendition of “China Grove” by the DoobieBrothers and got the crowd’s attention. Next was an original, “Friends ’Til theEnd,” that sounded like an OK song — but there seemed to be problems gettingthe levels right on the instruments and microphones so it sounded a bit muffledand was hard to judge. This was followed by a remake of the TI song “WhateverYou Like”; they turned this well- known hip-hop song into a very impressiverock song. Everyone in the crowd (including myself) was pleased with theresults.

They followed this with another original song, “Open Road,”that was pretty rockin’, and finished with a great rendition of 38 Special’s“Hold On Loosely” that prompted cheers and applause from the audience.Throughout the performance the levels on the instruments were a bit off, butthis was no fault of the band.

The third band to take the stage, Underlying Cause, haddifficulties from the start, both with sound levels and apparently someadditional technical difficulties. It took them about 15 minutes and a falsestart on their first song to get them mostly worked out, but once they did thisfour-piece band did quite well. Their first song, “Reckless,” was a very goodoriginal with a punk flavor to it. They followed this with two more originals:“Control,” which had a good rockin’ groove, and “Fly Above,” which started out a little slower putpicked up nicely. This song had an ’80s rock sound to it, although the singerseemed to be struggling with it just a bit. A pretty good rendition ofCandlebox’s “Cover Me” followed, and they finished with a great rendition of“Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin that definitely pleased the audience. Therewere still some sound level problems during their performance, but this bandhad performed well and got the most positive audience response up to thatpoint.

The fourth band was Treynrek, a Detroit-based band. This band had greatmusicians, but a singer that seemed mismatched for the material. Their choiceof songs was fantastic: “Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against The Machine,“Dead and Bloated” by Stone Temple Pilots, and “Bad Religion” by Godsmack werethe first three.

The musicians in the band did an absolutely fantastic job ofplaying these songs, but something just sounded amiss with the singer. Afterverifying my suspicions with a number of audience members, I have to say thathis voice was just the wrong pitch for this kind of music. They performed threeadditional songs, all originals, that didn’t blow anybody’s hair back. Thefirst, “Muerta,” had a familiar sound to it and didn’t seem to interest theaudience very much. The singer tried to get everyone clapping during this songand had very few takers. “Stairwell” seemed to be a good song, but the singerwas definitely struggling to hit the right notes on this one. And their finalnumber, “Story of Your Life,” seemed like a solid song but again, the singerjust wasn’t the right fit for this type of music. They finished with a lukewarmresponse.

Atabout 11 p.m. the last band competing in the contest took the stage. It was alocal area band called Sonic Mosaic. This impressive trio performed four originalsongs that had a ’70s-‘80s rock sound. “Negative Proof Positive” was a greatthumping rocker that got fantastic audience response. “Just Speculation” had agreat groove but seemed to be one step short in the rhythm. The fourth tunethey performed was “Fortunes of Men,” and this song rocked: It also had afantastic ending that had the audience cheering enthusiastically. They finishedtheir set with an incredible rendition of Rush’s “Limelight.” This had to bethe best performance of a Rush song I have ever heard a local band perform.There were again some problems with the microphone levels, but the audience wasextremely pleased with their performance and they received the best responsewith loud applause and cheering.

So, what did the judges think? Well, their judgment didn’t totally meshwith what I was hearing in audience response to the bands. The winners were:

First place: Traynrek

Second place: Batteries Not Included

Third place: Sonic Mosaic.

But if I had to judge the contest by audience response itwould have been:

First place: Sonic Mosaic

Second place: Underlying Cause

Third place: Batteries Not Included

The evening finished out with a wonderful crowdpleasing bandcalled Hangnail that will also be performing at the Ionia Free Fair. I wouldhave to say that even with the technical difficulties this was a fun night out,and everyone seemed to have a very good time in Charlotte.