The Trent University Music Society (TUMS) and the Historic Red Dog Tavern hosted the annual Battle of the Bands competition on March 18.

There were prizes set aside for first, second and third places, as well as an additional $50 bonus prize to the band that registered the loudest crowd.

To kick things off, doors opened at 7:30p.m., and the first band started the show at about 8p.m. The Red Dog quickly started to fill up with friends, family, fans and judges, all excited to see what the six bands in the line up had to offer.

The line up for the night featured local bands with some Peterborough locals, current Trent students and some alumni. Some bands were just starting out and others are quickly becoming hometown sensations, including Television Road, Hangman’s Son, Dickie and The Boys, The Outsorcerer, Piss Locusts and The Elements.

In the end, Piss Locusts proved themselves to be the top dog, claiming the grand prize of $500. Television Road came in at a close second place for a well-deserved $300, and The Elements came in third place, clinching a prize of $100, as well as the bonus $50 for loudest crowd.

After the show, Arthur had a chance to meet up with the lead singer of Piss Locusts, Brad Daniels, during the tear down and had to ask him, on behalf of the whole band, how it felt to win big.

“Dude, it’s unreal. I can’t even believe it. After we played, we all felt really good about it, but you never know with these things. We thought we would be in the top three for sure. But hey, we thought that last year and we didn’t, so we just had our fingers crossed. To win is just the best feeling in the world, we would have never imagined,” Daniels shared.

In speaking with Daniels, Arthur asked if, when watching the other bands perform, they thought they had their work cut out for them.

“Definitely. Every band was a real contender this year. One that stood out, though, was The Elements. I was blown away by those guys. I had heard of them before, but hearing them play, they were amazing. Also TV Road – as soon as I saw that they were in the line up I knew they would be the band to beat,” said Daniels.

The Battle of the Bands competition and TUMS seems to have one of the biggest followings for events around Peterborough and the Trent community.

The Red Dog Tavern was absolutely jam packed for this event and for each band, there was a dense crowd of supporters.

Many were attracted by the fact that the event doesn’t charge any cover and the fact that Trent students, much like the Peterborough natives, love to support local events and the arts in general.

Y sure to have a good time with some good music, and get into some healthy and friendly competition while enjoying a beer alongside almost two hundred of your closest friends from the community.

I would highly recommend attending any event that TUMS has to offer in the future, including next year’s Battle of the Bands competition.

Arthur would also like to extend a big congratulations to all bands that performed last Friday, each of them would have been well deserving of first place and we do not envy the tough decision that the judges had to make.