Battle of the Bands

If you live anywhere near Johannesburg’s East Rand, you will already be familiar with the battle of the bands contest held at The Keg and Lion, Kempton Park.

It’s been a while since I’ve attended this festival of new and yet undiscovered music, but I dully performed my duties and attended the 1st leg of the Kempton regional battle this past Sunday. Whilst enjoying lunch, and a man-size ale, and just before the speakers were cranked-up for the first band; I had the pleasure of sitting around a table with Elbie Raats, the event promoter.

Since this was my first visit to this event, in more years that I care to mention, I asked for some background...

The battle of the bands has been hosted at The Keg for around 6 years now, this year though, they’ve changed the format ever so slightly. The logistical and time implications of having the entire battle hosted at one venue have been eliminated by having regional battles at different venues.

One of these venues is Woody’s Bar in Edenvale. The Edenvale regionals drew to a close on July 2nd, and Twi Shi emerged as winners for the region. 

Twi Shi - proudly displaying their awards after emerging as victors.

The competition is well organised in that the promoters provide a complete front of house, as well as on-stage sound and lighting system, including engineers behind the desk. Bands that enter are vetted before the time and there exists a stringent score sheet. The competition is open for bands of all genres, acoustic and plugged-in alike.

The goal of the battle is solely to promote new talent in the local music scene and with a non-profit promoter running the event, there should be no reason for new and unsigned bands alike to get much needed exposure.

The competition on Sunday featured great (and not so great) performances from unsigned and newly formed bands. Some of the bands on stage were:

2nd Life – a 4 piece band (sadly, bass was provided by an iPod) that, honestly, quite impressed me. The lead guitarist is technically fantastic and the drums are solid, but the frontman / vocalist of the band was a pleasure to watch and listen to. A good mix of powerful vocals with great usage of falsetto and vocal effects.

City Monks – A grunge / punk triplet out of their era. This fresh-out-of-the-garage, garage band is nothing much to write home about, but then neither was The Clash, Ramones or Nirvana – clearly City Monks’ influences - in their early days.

The last band participating in the battle of the bands was by far the highlight of the competition. Use Your Words is a screamo rock/metal band with a fresh twist - they have a girl as alternate vocalist. The band is solid musically, with a decent stage presence.

Although Use Your Words should (in my humble opinion) be the clear winners of this, the 1st stage of the competition, the guest appearance by Because of Betrayal blew the roof off that mother. Their energetic stage performance planted a seed in me that continues to grow. And therefore, there will soon be an in-depth interview and opinion piece on them right here on The Lounge Critic. Stay tuned...

For more info around entry, rules and prizes for the Battle of the Bands, contact Elbie Raats at elbie@alwin.co.za

The Kempton leg of the competition takes place at The Keg and Lion, every Sunday afternoon from around 2 pm. So go out there and have a good time while support the bands.

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