“We call it Battle of the Bands, but I honestly wish it didn’t have the word battle in it,” said Ballengee. “It gives the connotation it’s just for high school garage bands or something. I also don’t like the word battle because people don’t want to be in competition creatively and I totally understand that. Since we’ve done it a couple of years, people that have attended know it’s a concert series that’s not pretentious. It’s a fun, networking event that can lead to other opportunities for the performers.”
Not just guitars
The competition isn’t open to just rock groups. There have been solo acoustic acts, rappers, duos and various configurations, playing everything from blues and R&B to folk and bluegrass. This year’s field of 26 participants is even more sonically expansive.
“When I started communicating with (co-organizers) Sound Valley and Carli (Dixon) at The Brightside, we all wanted to put out to people that it’s open to anybody,” Ballengee said. “You can be a band, but you can be a solo act. We really tried to be thoughtful about our registration promotion to make sure people know you can be any genre, any age and any size group.”
The diversity makes the Battle of the Bands unique to many music competitions. While it’s not always one musical genre, these events are usually predominantly white dudes with guitars playing some form of rock, country, blues or jazz.
“I will say the vast majority of applicants fall into the rock category,” Ballengee said. “It would be so easy to do a Battle of Bands with just those bands, but we want it to be diverse. We want to explore other genres and not just be like, ‘We’re a rock town and that’s it.’ "
Disparate opponents
Bohemian Funk, the 2022 winner, is the epitome of a rock band. Taking the top prize could be difficult for this year’s competing rockers.
“I always break up the genres each week, so the finale is diverse,” Ballengee said. “It has the best of each genre and also makes it so not all the Americana bands or whatever win. In past years, we’ve had two to three weeks of rock. This is the first year we’re only doing one rock week, which is very unusual. We have a rap and R&B week, a folk and singer-songwriter week, one that’s jazz, blues, electronic and world music, another that’s funk and reggae, and then a week of country, bluegrass and Americana for the first time.”
Ballengee is also pleased to see more female performers involved in the competition this year.
“The Battle of the Bands is put on by a group of women so it was really important to be diverse,” she said. “Last year, we had almost no women performing. I’m happy to report we have female performers in every single week. We want to be inclusive of different genres, but we also have performers in different age groups. We have some seasoned performers, but we also have young bands. There are different forms of diversity, whether it’s age, genre or whatever.”
Finding the groove
The inaugural Battle of the Bands was held in January and February 2020. After a 2021 pandemic-imposed skip-year, the second installment was held in early 2022. Like past years, the competition once again features area acts competing in single-round elimination each Thursday night, with weekly winners advancing to the final round on March 11.
“Now that we’re in year three, it feels like the first year we’re back to normal,” Ballengee said. “The first one was in 2020 and it was just so hard to figure out the infrastructure. What are the rules? How long does it run? You’re filling in the blank for every single question you can answer. We did it again last year, but it was right after the holidays, and we had the Omicron wave. There was just a lot of heartache still a year ago about COVID protocols and keeping people safe. We’re at our stride now and we don’t have to figure everything out. It gives us a bit more bandwidth to get the registration out earlier, focus on getting a strong, diverse bunch of acts, and work to make this the best Battle of the Bands yet.”
Contact this contributing writer at 937-287-6139 or donthrasher100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
What: Dayton Battle of the Bands
Where: The Brightside, 905 E. Third St., Dayton
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12
Cost: $10
More info: 937-410-0450 or www.thebrightsidedayton.com
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