So, this battle of the bands I’ve been going to every week has given me lots of food for thought. I had originally intended to make a post with my top 5 sure-fire ways to catch my eye (ear?) at a show, but after Friday night, I think part of that list merits a post all its own.

The battle had come down to three bands: The 3 Godfathers (couldn’t find a link, someone help?), One Night Scam, and Fighting Tomorrow. The three bands all had decidedly different flavors of “rock” to them: The 3 Godfathers are a bit mellower rock, One Night Scam are pop-punk, and Fighting Tomorrow are hard rock/metal. Each band had brought its own contingent of fans, as well. On the line were a music store gift certificate, recording time at a studio, and the band would have their press kit personally delivered to a VP of A&R from Lava Records. No small prize.

So how do you judge three very diverse bands in a “battle” of the bands? One of my friends and I had been talking about the results of one of the heats, and she had complained that the band she liked had better songs, but the band that won just had a better stage show. To me, that made all the sense in the world. If it were simply a matter of whose songs were better, or whose record was better, you could have a songwriting competition or put their singles to “battle” on a radio call-in show. A battle of the bands in this sense is all about the live performance — granted, you have to have at least decent songs and somewhat talented musicians to even get to the point where performance even matters — and the performance is what should, in my opinion, separate the winners from the losers. This may or may not have been how the judges went about their work, but it’s what stands out the most for me, and what I want to talk about a bit more in depth.

When a band takes the stage to play, they confront one of three kinds of audiences. There is could be an enthusiastically supportive and open audience, an indifferent audience, or a hostile audience. More likely, you’ll have a combination thereof. The first thing the band does when they step on the stage and put fingers to strings will dictate what that crowd does, especially whether the indifferent ones standing around will engage and become supportive or turn hostile and demand you off the stage.

Few things disappoint me more than bands who stand up on stage and play like The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. If I wanted to just hear the music, I could have crammed myself in a crowded bar with my iPod. People who go to a show, want to see a show. This was where both One Night Scam and Fighting Tomorrow, in my opinion, stood out. One Night Scam had a constant banter with the crowd, and they kept them engaged. Whether it was call and response, hand clapping, or playing for screams from the girls with on-stage antics, they never gave the people time to get bored or look away. My favorite such antic came at the end, during “Put Up Or Shut Up,” where the lead singer/bassist went no-hands and the two guitarists took over bass duties. It’s so fun every time I see it. (Next time I’ll get pictures.) Combining this with the talent and quality songs that are requisite to get to this level in such a competition regardless, you ended up with a very entertaining package that I thought would be hard to beat.

Fighting Tomorrow followed One Night Scam on the opposing stage. They have a bit of theatrics to their entrance, with music to hype the crowd as they take the stage. Their in-your-face metal music comes with a similar stage show, with the lead singer immediately out in the crowd and bringing the music to them, rather than screaming it out over them as so many metal acts do. The whole group really throws their entire bodies into what they do, and that enthusiasm and passion bleeds out onto the crowd as well, especially when they do it within arm’s reach. None of the band members flinched away from crowd contact, or eye contact with the crowd, and that give and take tends to whip front rows into a frenzy of energy. This was especially apparent when in the middle of one of their songs, the power to the stage suddenly, inexplicably, went out. The band didn’t stop playing. The guys jammed just as hard sans sound as they did with the amps cranked up, though the only sounds were the drums and the ardent singing of their dedicated fans.

I had to stand back and just take in the surreal scene, of such momentum in the music that it was almost like a runaway train — neither the band nor the crowd could stop it. It was a poetic moment, and also an amusing one, watching these boys thrash on stage to the sounds of drums and nothing else. It spoke volumes about them as musicians and as people, however. Eventually the band gave up hope of the power coming back in time to save the song and quit playing. Power was restored minutes later, and after an impromptu poll of the fans, Fighting Tomorrow started the interrupted song over and finished their set.

When they finished, I said to my friend that if anything, Fighting Tomorrow had won the chutzpah award. At first glance, one might think that having such a calamity occur with the eyes of judges and A&R reps and dozens of fans upon you would be the end after such a strong performance from the competition minutes before. I felt the opposite, though. This gave Fighting Tomorrow a chance to demonstrate their poise under pressure, and also give a real show. The show didn’t even stop when the sound did, and to me, that spoke volumes. I like to think it did for the judges as well. Fighting Tomorrow were declared the winners.

I can’t help but think that One Night Scam will come out of this as winners as well. They have such an appealing sound (I bought their album after seeing them in the first round, and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it) and such fun to watch that I think they will be turning the heads of the people that matter soon, if they haven’t already. Like I said on Friday, even if they didn’t win the prize, the fact remains that a record label rep saw them, and that is more than most bands will ever get. It’s a start.

Other favorite examples of connecting with the audience for me come from some of my favorite bands, but the best is by far Aiden. I play their CD a lot for friends, and many inevitably turn their nose up at the intensity of the music, or the lyric matter, or even Wil’s voice. Then, they get a chance to see Aiden in concert. The minute Aiden hits the stage, it’s as though you’ve been punched in the face. Guitars are flying, Wil is in the front row’s faces, and there is an electric connection that does not stop until they leave the stage and a wrung-out, exhausted crowd in their wake. Capturing the attention and energy of the apathetic people in the crowd turns the energy in such a way that the hostile people are overpowered and the audience dynamic as a whole can turn from negative to positive in the course of one song.

When I was volunteering at a music conference earlier this summer, there was a listening panel where bands played their demos for various music industry types, and got critiqued. Several people who had been in the panel told me later that the refrain from several of the industry people was, “We’ve heard this before, a hundred times.” There are only so many songs you can write, so many chords you can play. It’s when you get out on stage, in front of 20 or 2,000, and what you do when you get out there, that makes all the difference. If you stand on stage and strum your guitar and sing, you are likely to bore your audience into apathy or worse. If you engage your audience, physically and with your music and words, you can make your performances an experience, one that they feel as though they were part of. It makes every show different and special, for you as well as the fans.

I’d be curious to hear about other examples of bands — either national or local — that really give a show when they play on stage, and what makes the live experience with that band special. I feel like the things I’ve described are pretty universal; are they more subjective than I thought?