Winter Formal or...?

Okay, here's the situation, my band can't figure whether we should completely abandon the idea of playing in Battle of the Bands at the winter formal this year, or not. Of course we have kind of talked about the pros and the cons but coming from other outside sources of people who have been/are in bands, should we shoot for the publicity there or just skip that gig(it isn't paying either) and move on to a different one elsewhere.
And we are in Omaha, Nebraska if that helps with the opinion.
Thanks
Case

well it depends

1) what music do you play?

2) are you good? (honestly. no sense in embarresing yourself

3)you arnt gona get paid for a lot of gigs until u acctually get demand.

id personally play it, what could it hurt? hey my band entered with only the objective to play and have fun and we won by a landslide!

1. We have developed our style into a more heavy hard rock and light metal. NO SCREAMO.
2. The Drummer, Scott, has had formal music training for 5 years, the Bassist, Tyler, has grown up around music(whole fam damily plays), and I know what I am and am not capable of doing, though they say I can rip on the guitar pretty well.
3. I don't actually care about being paid, but it would be a definite bonus for small things that need to be taken care of(i.e. equipment)

And my band feels the same way about the gig as you did, we want to play it, but we are a little stuck in what to do, I mean we would do something along the lines of me going out alone and playing my version of "Eruption"(Cliche yes, but effective) into whatever we decide on, so really only a single song. But, then again, I'd love to leave a legacy behind with my senior year finally here :)

i dont think thatd go over well, respectfully of course. i mean if you wana open with it thats fine. just grabs attention and people will listen. do you have a singer? if theres one thing some people dont like its music without vocals. unless you wana go solo or just do guitar stuff id go with singing. id go with popular songs everyone knows. whats some bands u guys like? do u guys like the same bands. its important.

well, yes I would only do it to say "hey, look over here now!". But then we wanted to do "Master Exploder" by Tenacious D, people know or at least heard of them. If you listen to anything from today(I don't) please let me know some popular rock songs. but I know what you mean about the jam sessions, I don't want to do that, that would be like a shut up and leave type of thing from everyone.

anyways, we did plan on just grabbing everyone's attention in "Eruption" and then leading into whatever we decide on(I didn't mean just Eruption). That's the big thing for us, we want to have people actually look over and see us, then think "Wonder what they'll do now...". plus, I just gotta wear my new black leather vest on stage!

i'd go for the battle of the bands personally

yh i dont listen to new stuff either. i mean like what bands do you like? so maybe u can have it both ways, play stuff u like and they like.

@patleh
Battle of the Bands is during Winter Formal.

@EMB
Honestly I just listen to 80's Hair metal, hair, pop rock, metal, hard rock, etc. so I am in somewhat of a rut for what to play, because I don't really know what songs I would like that they would also like. I'm kind of lost on what we would play...I'm going to do a poll within the school, I'll have my answer in about 2 weeks.

You should definitely do it. Like EMB said, there will be plenty of gigs that you won't get paid for. But that's not the point. You have to get people listening to your music. That is a fact. If nobody hears your stuff nobody will listen. Building a fan base is the most important part of a bands success; aside from band cohesion. Also, play more than one song dude. This isn't the 80's/90's where a band could gig with one song and get off as the 'mystery' band that everyone wants to see. There are thousands if not millions of gutiar players just like you out there and plenty of them are extremely good at what they do. I've been involved one way or another with people in the music industry for the past three year and I'm telling you, play every gig you can get your band signed up for, even if it means playing acoustic sets and the local coffee shop for 5 bucks a day. Create a myspace or your own website. Advertise. You have to get your band heard.
Besides the more gigs you play the better you'll get. Playing live is much different than jamming in the basement with your buddies. Consider this battle of the bands to be practice for better things yet to come. Best of luck dude. Rock on.

By the way...if you got the time, check out some of the bands I've been involved with:
Dive: myspace.com/dive
Automatic Fire: myspace.com/automaticfire
Arshreddian Orchestra: showcaseyourmusic.com/rshred
Silvertide: myspace.com/silvertide
Shinedown: myspace.com/shinedown

Thanks GS, but one problem. My high school is a bunch of idiots and will only let you do one song, then your out of there. I want to do it, I see it as publicity for us, like you said. And I really don't care too much about pay, I'm just a little curious as to what might be down the road for us this year.

how long does the song has to be? id play maybe some van haalen. if you can sing it some gnr. ozzy cant hurt. crazy train is cool. maybe unchained. name songs u like.

and yh u dont notr play a gig bc ur not gertting paid. thts just dumb.

ha my bad

Haha just do it man,i doesnt matter if you suck,wich i dont think you would,just do it,for the sake of experience

Me and my band always enter to Battle of Bands and stuff like that,and most of the times we win,you just need some really good material and good presence...most of the times

yeah, I'm waiting for the other two guy's thoughts(drummer, bassist) I want to do it though. But what we play is still out there, we have Crazy Train completely finito, we are going to start in on Panama shortly too.
I like EMB's thoughts on songs...definitely my taste in music :)
anyways, my friend who's also in a band here locally, was just telling me last night that no one really cares about if you do just 1 song. so there's hope yet for a two song setlist!

who sings?

What does the singer like to sing/sound good at? Like band wise. Because from what it sounds like, the band could do just about anything. BUT, if the singer sounds like crap, the people in the crowd who [for the most part] have no musical experience and base most of what they think of a band based on the frontman [whom projects the feel and attitude of the band]. If he can, try something with a snarl. An edge I guess. What you think that is is up to you and the boys though. I will say that what you're mostly going to encounter is emo/screamo [Correct me if I'm wrong], so if you bring something different or original and edgy, you'll definetly stand out. And one last thing, if they don't like it, throw back at them [literally and figuratively] whatever gets thrown at you.

Hope that helps man.

Ozz

@ozz
lol I definitely think that doing something like "Crazy Train", or really anything that is from before 2000 would be a good idea. I honestly don't know what most stuff sounds like today, but I'm assuming that your right on the mark for screamo stuff. I don't care for it...
@EMB and Ozz
...uhhh...that's also our problem, the guy we had lined up to sing really sucked...like...bronchitis...horrible...so the search continues! and we are going to turn to craigslist and within our school here soon, we've got about 4 months until the BotB.

look around the school a bit, a good singer is hard to find. you need luck lol.

Very much agreed. Try to get someone who stands out man. Just watch out for the quiet chorus geek that promises they can sing. I made that mistake once and will not let it happen to you.

I am actually going to do some auditions right in the hallways...during the passing period...with a large crowd. no jk
But I plan on putting some flyers out and just making some sort of school-wide email(we have our own mail system) and then possibly just having them upload an mp3 of them singing, and some of their favorite bands. Any thoughts on other methods?

thats fine. maybe open tryouts at school but thts good

update, if you have a facebook, then search for Beast Hammer, and that's us.

I'd opt for tryouts because with all the editing and *** thats out right now you could be just getting lied to via an MP3 file lol.

yeah, good point. I totally forgot about that, plus they could do multiple takes...hmmmmmmm...I'll still send out that e-mail but just not opting for the mp3.
Thanks ozz

Yup.

B O T B