BRITNEY MALONEY
News Assistant
Drums sticks flew, a lone student body-surfed and audience members jumped to their feet as four different Pepperdine bands competed in the third-annual Battle of the Bands on Friday night.
Cavil at Rest, a band composed primarily of college sophomores, took the title of Battle of the Bands champion 2006. Other competing bands included Allure, The Bio Dome 5 and Say No More.
Cavil at Rest, whose name means ‘to put aside,’ also opened for Jimmy Eat World when they performed at Firestone Fieldhouse this fall. Ryan Hahn, the band’s lead singer, is the only Pepperdine student in the band.
“This was a lot of fun,” Hahn said about the competition. “We are very excited.”
Student Programming Board (SPB) supervisor Justin Schneider said the event turned out well.
Schneider said of Cavil at Rest, “It was definitely the best performance by all four bands, and I think Cavil at Rest is the best band we’ve had perform in three years.”
Hahn and Taylor Rice, who plays guitar and says vocals, started the four-member group four years ago.
“We just started jamming in high school,” Hahn said. The band’s other members are Kelcey Ayer, guitar and vocals, and Andy Action, bass who all went to high school in south Orange County.
“I was really impressed by all the bands,” freshman Stephanie Chin said. “They were all really different and had their own unique sounds.”
“I was really split on who was going to win,” Chin said. “To be honest, I thought the Bio Dome 5 would take it, but Cavil at Rest did really well also.”
“The amount of diversity shown at Battle of the Bands was remarkable,” said sophomore McClees Stevens. “I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the overall quality.”
It was a success, Schneider said. “We had just under 300 people in attendance and it seems everyone had a great time. It was the best Battle of the Bands yet.”
Schneider also said he has only received positive feedback regarding the competition.
“Everybody I’ve heard from had a great time,” he said. “Some people had different opinions about who the best was, but most people were actually pretty happy about that. It was great all around.”
Five Pepperdine students judged the four competing bands in six different categories. The categories were musical presentation, audience appeal, enthusiasm, lyrical content, style and overall performance. According to the SPB Web site, Cavil at Rest barely edged out The Bio Dome Five for the first-place finish.
The judges were senior Katie Byron, senior Karl Kalinkewicz, freshman Riley Jamison, senior Jasmine Patterson and senior Andrea Scott.
The Bio Dome 5 is composed of five musicians, all Pepperdine students. The group displayed its versatility when they asked audience members for help in one of their songs. The audience shouted the phrases “trapped underwater in a car,” “McDonalds” and “pinky toe” in response to the questions “Where is the scariest place you’ve ever been? The most romantic place? A body part?” respectively, and the Bio Dome 5 produced an original song using those phrases.
The band also impressed concertgoers by exchanging instruments nearly every song.
Despite the obvious popularity that The Bio Dome Five carried within the crowd, the $500 earnings went to Cavil at Rest.
In comparison to the past two years’ concerts, Schneider said that this year was the best so far. “We had four solid bands,” he said. “We had a great crowd that came to have fun. Though the event wasn’t sold out, it was still a great success with the amount of people. The hosts were fun and not cheesy.”
The bands competing enjoyed the atmosphere and the crowd.
“This was really awesome,” Ayer said. “I feel like we were really able to connect. However, my keyboard wasn’t on so I improvised.”
Ayer also said he was impressed with the competing bands.
“I was really nervous,” he said.
Hahn and Ayer said their musical influences include Broken Social Scene, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Zombies, the Beach Boys, Sufjan Stevens and Led Zeppelin. “And of course the Beatles,” Hahn said.
The band’s plans for the future include continuing to play wherever they can.
“We just finished a new CD, so we are very excited about that,” Hahn said.
“We are blessed to know a man helping us with a record label,” Ayer said. “He is getting us out there.”
02-09-2006
