The audience picks the winner! Who would you choose?
By Josh Hughes
2017 marks the third consecutive year of the Underground Coffeehouse’s battle of the bands-style competition, Sounds of The Underground. Partnering with AS Productions and the Make.Shift, the UGCH sends out a call for submissions each year in early March for bands and artists to submit their music for consideration. Once the candidates are finally picked, they compete in a bracket-style tournament of performances where the audience gets to vote on the winner. It provides an excellent entry point into the various local scenes of music around Western, and the winner of the overall competition gets an opening slot for the headliners at Lawnstock.
Those bands that were picked from the submissions, announced back in the start of April, performed in groups of three these last two weeks at the Underground, leading up to what will be the culminating performance on May 12 in the MPR for the overall winner to be decided. These preliminary rounds, then, gave bands a chance to show off their musicianship and breadth of talent. In brisk thirty to forty-five minute sets, the bands all gave their best performances in hopes of making it to the next round.
The winners from the first three preliminary rounds: Breakside, Sweaty Already and The Dawn Bombs, have already secured spots as being in the final show for the Sounds of The Underground, though all of the other bands that competed still have a chance to make it back in for the end of the bracket. Look out for a Wildcard Poll by AS Productions in the next few weeks for an opportunity to vote for one of the other bands that you loved that didn’t win their respective part of the bracket.
Breakside, Virgo Virgo, Mike Hindert and the Wolf, The Dawn Bombs, Girlo and Chef, Fluencie, Sweaty Already, Good Sleep, Drftrs, Step Dads, Maddy Smith and We Won’t Leave make up the entirety of bands in the competition, all of which have provided access to their music through the UGCH Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/wwuundergroundcoffeehouse/, which students are welcome to check out.
If you haven’t already, go online and listen to the various bands’ music, and be on the lookout these next few weeks for more information about the culminating performance in the VU MPR on May 12.
