WVUD’s Battle of the Bands Proves to Be a Success

Written by: Martina Rexrode

Edited by: Josephine Moran

On Saturday, March 11, UD’s campus radio station WVUD held its first Battle of the Bands event since pre-COVID that featured a line-up filled with incredible talents from Newark and the surrounding areas, including Lich Teeth, Arkum, Noise Complaint, Grandeur, Vanylla Godzylla, Evan Fox, Local Orange, and Honeycomb. The bands played from alternating A and B stages on either side of the room and battled it out to see who had the best audience interactions, energy, and preparedness.

Since attending my first show at The Temple (a DIY music venue in Newark run by UD students) last semester, I wanted to get more involved in the local music scene, but my class schedule at the time wasn’t very permitting. This time around, when one of my roommates sent a promotional post about the Battle of the Bands event to our group chat, I jumped at the opportunity. And the three of us had the time of our lives.

We were worried when we walked in at 9:45pm and were the only ones in the room besides the bands. The small table we claimed and a few catered sugar cookies were the only things keeping us company until others finally started to file in around fifteen minutes later. Maybe we were supposed to be fashionably late, but hadn’t gotten the memo. Either way, by the time Lich Teeth kicked off the night just past 10:00pm, we were standing front row and nodding our heads to the music.

The night progressed with our small trio walking from Stage A to Stage B just as the previous set was saying their goodbyes, and it continued that way until the very end. We embraced the contagious energy of the crowd which matched the exact energy of the bands: swaying, jumping, and moshing depending on what fit each genre.

When I think back on that night, nothing comes to mind quicker than Muscle Man, who I can only assume is Grandeur’s charismatic mascot, crawling onto the far side of the stage from the floor in slow-motion and wearing a human anatomy bodysuit. This scared my roommates and I so badly; we probably ended up taking at least five steps back from where we were in the second row. Eventually, we realized that all he wanted to do was hype up the band and keep the energy up with his awesome dance moves, so he was basically harmless. And Grandeur’s cover of “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga might have been the best thing I heard that night.

Not to say that I had low expectations for the bands on the line-up, but the different things showcased at the Battle of the Bands were not at all what I had anticipated. The energy of Local Orange when they parted the crowd down the middle and ran through in the middle of a song, the insane crowd chants for encores from Noise Complaint and Vanylla Godzylla, and the excitement of singing along to every word of Honeycomb’s covers of Olivia Rodrigo’s “brutal” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” even when their set went just until 1am were all such incredible things to see at an event like this.

By the end of the night, my feet hurt, my knees were aching, and I was ready to pass out in the comfort of my own bed. It was the same feeling I got every time I was driving home after seeing one of my favorite artists, a feeling I hadn’t felt since my last concert in September; one I hadn’t realized I missed so much. So I guess I should thank WVUD for putting on such an incredible event last weekend, because it made me realize that, as a senior, I should take advantage of all of these events while I can.

For anyone who clicked on this article hoping to learn who actually won Battle of the Bands, I’ll leave the results below as well as my completely biased ranking of my own top 3.

The Winners

First Place: Vanylla Godzylla

Second Place: Local Orange

Third Place: Arkum

My Picks

First Place: Evan Fox

Second Place: Grandeur

Third Place: Lich Teeth