The band Wooderson gives a rousing performance to a large crowd outside of Rodrigues coffee house. Courtesy of Dayne Carter
By Dayne Carter
Approximately 275 students gathered outside Rodrigues coffee house last Saturday for the annual Battle of the Bands concert. Every year, Fordham musicians are invited to submit samples of their music, and ultimately 10 bands are selected to compete live for the chance to open up the spring weekend concert before the headlining act.
Patrick Keegan, FCRH ’17 Mike Mainiero, FCRH ’15 and Matthew Kelly, FCRH ’15 form a group called Braun, and were first-time performers at BOTB. Keegan and Mainiero are both members of Fordham University’s Rugby team and Kelly and Mainiero roomed together during their freshman year.
“We’d [Mike and I] been jamming for a while and started writing songs together. Then, we realized, we should actually get a band together and try it out. We knew Matt and asked him if he wanted to drum for us and that’s how it all came together,” said Keegan.
One element each band must factor into their set is the time limit. Each act is only allowed 15 minutes to showcase its best material and try to win over the crowd. Dan Piserchia, FCRH ’15, a member of Mr. Legs, described the difficulty in doing so.
“The hardest part was keeping it within the limit,” said Piserchia. “Obviously there should be time limits, but 15 minutes is a very small amount of time to show off the diverse range of songs we have. We didn’t really play any of our mellow songs, we played a lot of heavier music.”
While the event is held at Fordham University, there were a couple of students competing who attended different schools. As long as a majority of a band’s members are Fordham students, non-Fordham students are allowed to perform as well.
Alex Tremitiere, a junior at NYU and Will Taggart, a sophomore at Syracuse, both competed at BOTB as members of Second Child.
“These guys write such good music that I’m willing to do anything I can to be a part of this project because I think the music that we make is really special,” said Taggart. “So, I’m willing to make a four hour drive anytime to play music.”
At the end of the night, once all the votes were counted in, The Suits were declared as the winners of the 2015 BOTB contest. The Suits are an alternative indie pop group made up of Eddie Gore, Ian Grotton, Mike Sansevere and Eric Grossman, whom are all seniors at Fordham Rose Hill.
While the group was unavailable for comment, they expressed much excitement on their Facebook page in being selected as the crowd favorite: “WE COMING 4 U Fordham University Spring Weekend!! Thanks so much to everyone who voted for us at the battle tonight- and to all the great bands!!”
Solidisco has been confirmed as the spring weekend DJ, and twenty one pilots was announced early Tuesday afternoon as the headlining act.
