Band battle

This week, the rivalry between Duke and UNC will take on a drastically different tone. The two schools will gather on Main West on Friday to showcase their greatest musical talents in the first annual Battle of the Bands, complete with food vendors and beer on points to boot.

The bands, which are required to consist only of undergraduates, will be judged by a panel consisting of representatives from local recording studios, venues, writers from The Independent and perhaps some local recording artists. The competition is set to take place over Friday and Saturday evenings in conjunction with Saturday’s football game against UNC. After the musical competition ends, the winner will be announced at halftime of the football game. There are nine bands competing, four from Duke and five from UNC. The bands range from typical college rock to acoustic to funk-jazz fusion.

On Friday, each band will have 20 minutes to play three songs; the best band from each university will then compete Saturday afternoon. In the end, the victorious band receives a professional recording session at a local studio, a gig at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh, $500 cash, a $250 gift certificate to the Music Loft near Ninth Street and catering for a CD release party.

The most interesting part of this competition will be to see how the bands from Duke, who get relatively no publicity outside of campus, will fare against the bands from UNC, who regularly play in local venues and are popular with the local residents as well as the student body. “In Chapel Hill, you’re in an environment where you’re exposed to music all the time,” said senior Linh Le, the chair of All Campus Entertainment committee of the Duke University Union and organizer of the battle. “At Duke, you’re playing at a [‘Dillo] every Saturday night. The standards are just so different.” At that, she paused. “The thing that most Duke students don’t realize is that here, we have bands that are just as good if not better.”

Sponsored by a variety of on-campus groups, the competition promises musical entertainment of a scale rarely found on Duke’s campus. The hope is that the battle will show the greater University population Duke’s artsy edge. “I’m predicting that we’re going to have a huge turnout,” Le explained. “Crowd participation and noise is going to be a factor for the judges in deciding who’s the winner.”

In short, the concert is designed for the audience, to show off both Duke and UNC’s talents. Ultimately, however, one of the two schools will emerge victorious in the contest, and the rivalry will become much deeper.

In years to come, the Battle of the Bands will alternate between the two university’s campuses. “I think that this event is just going to take off and become incredibly popular,” Le said. “I have high hopes for it for the future.” As of right now the focus must be on the present and the competition that imminently looms ahead.

In the meantime, Le remains optimistic. “We are going to blow them out of the water,” she said with a huge smile. “We’re going to show them what we’re made of.”