College News

The Final – Battle of the Bands

This year’s final of the annual Battle of the Bands was recently held at QE. The final traditionally takes place at the end of the autumn term just before Christmas, but, due to building work, the Student Association decided to hold it later.

Beccy Stannard, Student Services Co-coordinator, explains:

‘The event was a sell out with students filling the Hall to see which band would be crowned Battle of the Bands’ winners. The event kicked off with the staff band, quite wittily named Oldplay, who got the crowd in the mood, followed by Costa Del Soul putting the ‘fun’ into funk. Next up was Atlas Wynd followed by Doberman, The Calanaz, Pandora & the Wolves and finally The Rations.

As the votes were counted, Vice Principal, Anita Blackburn took to the stage, holding in her hands the grand prize – £200 worth of studio time and the Liam Harker Trophy. Compere, Andrew Backhouse, thanked the bands for performing and the Student Association for organising the event.’

Costa Del Soul won the competition. Tom Stephenson, guitarist from the band, said:

‘It’s a truly humbling thing to know that we have so much support at QE. There’s no amount of words to express what a fantastic experience playing for QE has been. Coming into it we were focussed on simply having a great time and sharing our music with other students. Our performance would simply have been a success if just one person had gone away from it thinking that they might listen to some Aretha Franklin or Wilson Pickett. We had a brilliant time just playing and being part of such a high quality event and for this we our most grateful. We thank everybody who contributed.’