Battle of the Bands











I have been playing the guitar for about three years now. I formed my band Closed Future a couple of months ago . We have one base player, a singer, a drummer and I’m the guitar player. We were also the new band on the block. There were about four other rock bands at our high school. The best band was Affluent Teen. They had won the Battle of the Bands for the past two years. Their band was made up of the wealthiest kids at our school. They had the best musical equipment that was available. They also seemed to be that most self-centered and arrogant ones at the school.
It was early October when we entered the battle of the bands. Since there was only four bands there would be three rounds. Since my band was the newest we wanted to make a name for ourselves. We had two months until the computation would start. We decided to have band rehearsal 5 times a week. For our first performance we would play our song “Abstraction on ice”.
Two weeks before the battle of the bands; members of the Affluent teen was beginning to get very egotistical. The worst one was Aaron, their lead singer. He would tell us how horrible our music was and how we should never play again. He would also talk about how they would blow us out of the water with votes.
“Your band will be begging to the judges for a recount,” Aaron said to me.
I would try to ignore him and just walk away: but by not responding it made him even angrier. Later that day as I was going to the buses and right above the exit door; spray-painted said “closed future sucks.”
Later that day at band rehearsal we discussed what we were going to do about Aaron and his band. We were determined to beat their band so horribly that they would never brag again about how great they were.
Two weeks before the concert I was becoming increasingly nervous. Band rehearsal seemed to drag on.
On the first day of the concert we would be playing against a band whose name I cannot remember. We swept the floor with them and got to advance to the next round. As usual Affluent Teen won in their round.
As the next night came we were getting ready for the final round. We would be playing “New Twist in Champions” as our song. Now this was back in 2003 so rock music was big. As I walked in I could hear the crowd. When we got there; we went back stage to start to set up. As we were doing this Affluent teen was playing their song. As I listened to their song, most of the lyrics seemed to be about how great things where for them and how they were the best. If you listed though you could hear that the drummer was off beat and it seemed like they didn’t practice very much. After their song ended they came back stage. We tried not to get into a confrontation with them, but as usual Aaron had to say something.
“Good luck losers,” he said as he smugly walked away.
This time I couldn’t ignore him.
“Hey Aaron,” I called out.
He slowly turned around to look at me.
“What do you want poor boy?” he asked.
“I’ll make a deal with you; if you lose against us you can never brag about how your band is the best, and you will have to stop bullying the other bands.” I said.
“And what if I win?” he asked
“We’ll never play another song ever again and I’ll even carry your speakers back to your car.” I replied.
Now speakers where about 100 pounds and no one liked setting them up and taking them back to their car. As I walked out on to the stage for a moment I was blinded by the lights and all that I could hear was the buzz of the crowd. Then after the moment when the lights blinded me I could finally see the crowd all around eager to see if we would perform better than the last band.
After we had set up we introduced our band and began to play. Playing our song was as easy as pie and I felt that we had played better than Affluent Teen. Both bands waited backstage as the votes were being counted. Time seemed to drag by as we waited. I started to wonder if we had played as good as I thought. After about 5 minutes they called our band to the stag . When we were all on the stage the main judge announced that we had won the battle of the bands. From back stage I could hear Aaron yelling at his band members for playing poorly. . The funny thing was that after Aaron was done yelling at his members he came out and was asking for a recount . After that night we never heard Aaron or any of his band member’s brag about their band. We were now recognized as the best band at the school and got to play at all the school