Students dance at Battle of the Bands.
Colman Rowan | Collegian

 

The Schizmatics, an all-senior band became winners of the lively all-campus event Battle of the Bands competition hosted by the men’s music fraternity called Theta Epsilon at Elks Lodge, defending their title from last year before an audience of around 400. 

“I love Battle of the Bands because we get to see new bands come in and perform for the first time, and the energy is always great,” said senior Matt Byrne, bassist for the Schizmatics. “People turn out to have a good time, and that’s always fun to see, especially from the stage.”

Lead singer and guitarist of the Schizmatics, Gavin Listro, said the final song of the setlist won them the competition. 

“We played, ‘Play That Funky Music, ‘Just the Two of Us, ‘Go Your Own Way,’ ‘Moving Out,’” Listro said. “We ended with ‘End of Beginning,’ by Djo, which was a lot of fun, I feel like that kind of drove it home.”

Along with the Schizmatics, four other bands competed: Crisis Actors, Runaround, Diet of Worms, and Jay Jameson and the Car Bombs. A panel of judges, including Collin Barnes, associate professor of psychology, Joshua Patch, assistant professor of education, and Graham Delano, a graduate student and coach of the men’s soccer team, awarded second place to Runaround and third place to Diet of worms. 

Stephen Berntson, president of Theta Epsilon, said the Battle of the Bands had previously been held at 55 Below, which is currently under renovations, and that the move to Elks Lodge significantly changed the acoustic experience. 

“I can actually hear every instrument,” Berntson said. “When the first band was playing I was like, ‘I can hear everything, the content, the vocals and then you’re engulfed in the noise.’”

During Diet of Worms’ set, Berntson told Daniel Doyle, lead singer of Runaround, that his setlist was the best of the night with covers of songs such as, “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC and “Devil went down to Georgia” by The Charlie Daniels Band.

“This set could only exist in Donald Trump’s America,” Berntson said. “Danny Doyle fills his set with songs that I would only start my set with. He fills his set with songs that throw my voice out. His whole set is songs that I’m ambitious about.” 

According to Doyle, Runaround changed its setlist at the last minute because of the crowd’s energy. 

“I really enjoyed doing ‘Crazy Train’ and we were gonna play another song,” Doyle said. “But the other song was ill prepared, and I didn’t feel very good about it. We haven’t practiced ‘Crazy Train’ since welcome party, and then I just turned to everyone and said ‘we’re cutting the song, we’re gonna play ‘Crazy Train’ at the end.’”

Along with “Crazy Train” Runaround played Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.”

Freshmen Lillian Kraemer and Emerson Goan said they were nearly punched in the face from all the jumping and dancing, especially during “Rolling in the Deep.”

“‘Rolling in the Deep’ brought the people together,” Goan said. 

Kraemer said her favorite band was the Schizmatics, and she enjoyed seeing people congregate in an event off-campus. 

“I love how it brings all parts of campus together,” Kraemer said. “And everyone is dancing but it is everyone that you would not expect to see.”

Byrne said that Hillsdale students’ love for live music brings so much energy to the event. 

“Hillsdale has a unique music scene for how small it is, and people are generally very positive about each other’s bands,” Bryne said. “There’s no beef, and everybody just loves to see each other play and have some friendly competition.”

For Doyle, the best part of performing is bringing so much joy to his friends in the crowd. 

“I know everyone, it’s not like a bunch of random people, and it works because at such a small school you know everyone that’s here,” Doyle said. “You can kind of just go crazy and not care, because it’s all people you’re friends with. 

Berntson agreed that Hillsdale’s music culture is uniquely oriented toward live music, making it more enjoyable to perform. 

“We’re in an awesome little micro-niche at Hillsdale,” Berntson said. “Randomly, all of the Hillsdale students love live music, and we provide the most goated live music.”