Battle of the Bands Leicester 2008

Second place went to the Steptoos and the third prize was shared between Smokin the Profit and Gone Feral.

The winning positions were awarded by a panel of judges including one of Leicester's biggest record labels, a top recording studio, the manager of a leading leicester music venue, a guitarist from a signed band and the Editor of Arts in Leicestershire.

Eight bands got through to the finals out of 25 bands that entered the competition, which ran for 10 weeks.

The competition was promoted by Will of Silver Bullet Promotions, drawing mainly on bands that had played at the Pavilion over the summer.

The £1,000 prize fund was donated by the owners of the Pavilion. The first place band received £500, £300 went to the second place and the third place bands shared £200.

The Grand Final was attended by a record audience, the biggest crowd of the whole competition.

Awards were also given to individual musicians for personal excellence.

Best Keyboard player was awarded to Joe Smith of the Screamin Eagles.

Best Bassist was awarded to Joel Hanson of Smokestacks.

Best Drummer was awards to Jonny Wells of the Penny Hangers

Best Guitarist was awarded to Rajiv Mohanlal of Smokestacks

Best Vocalist was awarded to Sam Kilby of The Screamin Eagles

Tom Ogrodzinski won the Jessops Award for Best Band Photography.

Slaine band

This Battle of the Bands competition was organised by Silver Bullet Promotions. All shows were held at the Pavilion Venue on Friday evenings over a 10 week period.

8 bands made it through the first round heats and sem-finals and won places in the grand final.

All 8 finalist bands were talented and put on superb performances; but its in the nature of competitions that only a few could take the winning places.

Competitions are widely held throughout the country, some being just local derbys and other being fought out on a national stage. On the same night as this final, the X Factor was reaching its conclusion on national televsion and the Orange Act Unsigned is going out on Channel 4, with a £60,000 contract in store for the winners. Earlier this year, M48 won the OBS at the Shed .

Photo: Oliver Barstow of Slaine. Photo © Tom Ogrodzinski

Results

Read reviews of the bands playing in the first round heats and the semi-finals.

Bands that played at the Grand Final (in order of play)

Photography Award

Leicester photography store Jessops donated a prize for best band photography.

Contestants submitted thier photos and a selection of these have been published on this web site.

The Award was won by a young Leicester photographer, Tom Ogrodzinki.

Our photo shows Tom Barstow of Slaine playing at the Battle of the Bands. Photo © Tom Ogrodzinski

Results and reviews

For results of heats and reviews of the bands see our Battle of the Bands page

First round heats

First round heats were held at the Pavilion on:

10th October
17th October
24th October
31st October
7th November

2009

The winners of each first round heat were decided by an audience ballot.

Voting slips were handed out to members of the audience and each person was asked to vote for a first and second choice. The votes were counted at the end of each show and the winner(s) announced. Several bands secured a large number of second votes, indicating that they had picked up support from people who had not come down to support them but nevertheless enjoyed their music.

The bands in the first round heats were also judged; in the case of a tie the judges casting vote was used. The judges were also able to play a wildcard vote to help bands that performed well but who might not have been able to pull in enough votes to get them through to the next level.

Nominations were given to individual musicians for excellence and one of the nominees in each category was given an award at the Grand Final

Semi finals

14th November (semi-final)

21st November (semi-final)

28th November (semi-final)

2009

Playoff

The playoff is for bands that did not make it through to the finals (in the semi-final gigs) but which put on an excellent performance and deserve to be given a second chance.

5th December (play-off)

Voting at the semi-finals will be by audience ballot, with the judges having a deciding vote in the case of a tie and also able to exercise a wild card vote for one of the bands.

Grand final

12th December

The bands were judged by a panel of industry experts, who decided on the winning bands. The judging panel comprised representatives from record labels, the recording industry, senior musicians from non-participating bands, and Arts in Leicestershire. There was no audience voting at the grand final.

The promoter decided that there would be 8 bands playing in the final, which means that each band would play 3 songs.

Feature Article: The 2009 Silver Bullet/Pavilion Battle of the Bands