The Tribune

By JEFFARAH GIBSON

Tribune Features Reporter

jgibson@tribunemedia.net

SIX Bahamian bands will gather on one night, at one venue, for one showdown of original live music during the Global Battle of the Bands Bahamas competition. The showdown will be held on November 30 at the Botanical Gardens where the musical groups will fight for the title, best band in the Bahamas.

Most of the participants in this years competition are returning contenders including Plati, The Truth, New Entry, Avante Guarden. The new comers are Kontact and Johnnie Christie and the Boats. All of the bands are excited to participate in the competition; they hope to represent the Bahamas on the world stage during the Global Battle of the Bands.

The winning band will be flown to Thailand in January 2014 to represent the Bahamas and compete in the GBOB World Finals.

The winner of the world finals will receive $100,000 worth of cash and band development packages, as well as a golden statuette for “Best New Band in the World”.

Stinkin Wayz, the best band in the Bahamas rated during the 2012 local competition, finished third in the global competition.

Competing bands will be challenged to use a variety of skills to deliver their best performances with original music compositions. No covers are allowed.

Music will be performed live and will be judged in several rounds. During the preliminary rounds, audience members will determine which band moves forward. In the final round, national and international music industry experts will have the final say on who will be crowned “Best Band in The Bahamas”.

After three rounds of competition the winner will be determined by the audience and a panel of judges. The audience will vote on ballots distributed with the name of each band.

There will also be guest performances from several Bahamian artists.

Ricardo Berris, chairman of the GBOB Bahamas said it was a challenge attracting bands to participate this year. More musical groups competed in last year’s event.

“We were expecting more bands to participate. I think part of the challenge that we have been hearing is that a lot of the bands do not have original music. The Battle of the Bands promotes the bands own music played live. A lot of the bands only play covers,; they do not have original music. We do not only encourage the bands to write their own music but they must write for the world and most of the bands declined because they did not have that in place,” he said.

Another factor is that a lot of musicians play in multiple bands as well. There are a lot of bands all over and on any give week you will see musicians playing with others bands,” he told Tribune Entertainment.

“We have to look at how we can begin to create programs where we can put younger folks around these instruments so that they can learn and play them. There is an opportunity to create an environment where we can feed a lot more young musicians in the system. So those are some of the challenges. They are just some general difficulties. We also suspect intimidation [is a factor for some bands]. Some feel because their bands may be so young they do no think they stand a chance against the other more mature bands,” he said.

Over the next few weeks the Tribune’s Arts & Entertainment section will feature profiles of competing bands leading up to the big show down.