If you’ve ever wanted to see five student bands battle it out for the crown, now’s your chance.
Queen’s Music Club (QMC) is set to host their second annual Battle of the Bands on Oct. 25 at The Mansion. The stacked bill will feature performances from Clark Hall Pub battle victors The Clay Pigeons, Blunt Force Llama who won the contest last year, and newcomers Jinx, Last Call, and Purple Dye.
With a randomly picked performance order, and results to be decided by audience vote, it’s a night that celebrates student talent. Whoever is crowned champion will earn a coveted spot on the Ale-palooza lineup in February, alongside booked bands The Astros and RevZed.
The competitors were decided by an audition process, held over two days. The criteria focused not only on musical talent and expertise, but also on stage presence, teamwork, and engagement.
“We liked people who looked really enthusiastic—who, clearly enjoyed playing their instrument, being a part of this band, obviously sound cohesive together, [and] everyone was kind of pulling their weight in the band,” Beth Armstrong QMC co-president, CompSci ’26, said in an interview with The Journal.
“The quality of the music was what came first, obviously, but something else that was also really important to us was seeing that the musicians were eager to perform and wanted badly to have their chance to be on to be on stage,” Jack Blurton QMC co-president, CompSci ’26, added.
Though some bands on the bill have more experience than others, the battle of the bands format has a way of balancing the scales. “I think that’s kind of what’s fun about this—maybe you go to see this one specific band, but you get absolutely blown away by another,” Armstrong said
QMC aims to bring together like-minded student musicians, providing students with twice-weekly jam sessions as well as renting out the space.
Bands such as Blunt Force Llama, Purple Dye, and Last Call, got their start from making connections at QMC jam sessions. “It’s really amazing to see them [students] not only kind of meet in our in our environment, in our music room and now to see them on a stage, is the ultimate goal,” Armstrong said.
QMC’s co-presidents hope Battle of the Bands continues to foster the sense of community that’s paramount to QMC’s values, continuing the vision of previous president Thomas Panksep, Sci ’24, who was pivotal in starting these events in the first place.
“[Last year’s event] was a great opportunity for local musicians to break into the scene. We wanted to enhance that this year, we wanted to provide even more opportunity to build that sense of community,” Blurton said.
“At the end of the day, we want to provide musicians at Queens with opportunities. […] just providing people with that opportunity to, first of all, meet fellow musicians and then, the much bigger opportunity of performing at Ale Palooza in what for many of the musicians around here will be the biggest audience that they’ve ever performed in front of,” Blurton said.
Performing to a larger crowd not only exposes the winning band to more audience members, but also provides them valuable experience in show procedure behind the scenes, and the opportunity to learn from more experienced bands.
“We’re really hoping that we can make them annual traditions, and just build up the reputation of each event in the future so that they’ll become even more meaningful,” Blurton said.
With last year’s vote ending in a three-way tie, who knows what this round has in store. Friday night is sure to be a busy one.
“I’m really looking forward to it. I know all of our musicians are really looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be high energy, good vibes and a lot of excitement,” Armstrong said.
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bands, Battle of the Bands, Music, Queen's Music Club
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