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St. Cloud State University
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Diversions
Bands battle for SCSU audience
By Joe Palmersheim
Published:
Thursday, February 6, 2003
Media Credit: Jason Risberg
Nick Hubin, bassist for Dysfunktion 212, played Wednesday night for Battle of the Unsigned Bands in Atwood Ballroom. McKinley Place won the event, which was sponsored by the University Program Board and Mississippi Music Fest Committee.
Music from all genres was heard at the 11th annual Battle of the Unsigned Bands Wednesday night, which was held in the Atwood Ballroom. The event had a high turnout, with an estimated 500+ people in attendance. A total of five bands performed, with sets that lasted 20 minutes each.
The first band to perform, to the sound of sustained applause, was McKinley Place, a local trio. The band has no drums, only two guitars and a vocalist, but this didn't stop them from achieving a rich sound. McKinley Place, a self-described "acoustic-pop" band, makes good use of strong vocal harmonies that create a melodic sound without the use of a bass guitar. During the performance, the band was saluted with a grand total of three lighters held aloft, as they left the stage to an enthusiastic farewell.
Dysfunktion 212 was the next band on the bill. They came out and tried to stir things up with mixed results. The band is a young one and their sound is something like Linkin Park crossed with early Korn. The band's greatest strength was their stage presence; they seemed like kids on a sugar high, jumping around with energy to spare. Unfortunately, their sound didn't seem to go over too well with the mostly college-aged crowd.
During the intermission, the MC explained both the judging process and introduced the panel of judges, which consisted of five men and one woman, all with some music-affiliated position of work. After this, the crowd was invited to play a game called "Hot Potato Chicken," which involved throwing a rubber chicken around in a version of musical chairs. Seven people played.
Restricted was the next band to take the stage. They were the only band at last evening's event to have a female member, who in this case was the lead singer. Restricted had a good sound for only being together for two weeks. They opened their set with a reggae-based song called "Water," which seemed to be made from an equal mix of dub reggae and Chuck Berry-styled guitar work. Restricted had the most diverse sound of any band in the evening's line-up, but unfortunately the audience didn't seem to warm up to them very well.
One of the evening's highlights, judging by the crowd response, was the set performed by Hydrophonics, who were reviewed in last week's issue of the University Chronicle. The crowd response to this band was amazing, with a large exodus to the front of the room when they took the stage. They closed their set with a song that had the refrain "Hell no to mind control," and they had half the crowd chanting it before the song was over.
The last band that played, Ignition, was late to the show because "traffic from Prescott really sucked." Nevertheless, they put on a good show, with a sound reminiscent of Live or Creed, with powerful guitar work mixed with strong vocal harmonies. They had a definite pop sensibility about them, and the crowd seemed receptive to their performance.
As the night drew to a close, the 200 people or so who were still present waited to hear the winners of the contest. The prizes ranged anywhere from a large pizza from Papa John's to 10 hours of recording time from Angel Beach Recording Studios and an opening slot at the upcoming Mississippi Music Festival in April. Hydrophonics took second place, which consisted of several gift certificates and a slot at an Earth Day music festival. The grand prize winner was McKinley Place.
"I thought it went alright. There were a couple of rough spots, but that's expected. Brian was down with his vocals and so was Patrick. I'm glad it sounded good," said Mike Krapp, one of the guitarists from McKinley Place.
"These are all great bands, and they all deserve to be here. Hopefully one of them (the bands) will make it big, and they all started here," said Kelly Cummins, SCSU Junior.
