NHS Junior Class Hosts

Battle Of The Bands

The Newtown High School Junior Class, the Class of 2013, hosted a Battle of the Bands on Friday, February 3, and raised roughly $2,400 for the class through the event.

Eleven bands took to the high school cafetorium stage during the roughly five-hour long night event, with Bread Pilot of Southbury declared the winner. The age range of the band members that participated were high school age to 20 years old, according to Junior Class Council Advisor Jessica Metz.

The event was open to the public, and parents, grandparents, other family, and friends of the participating band members attended.

Several of the bands, including the winning band, were from out of town, traveling from Southbury, Hamden, and New Haven to participate.

Gifts were offered to the winning band of the evening, and included a gift certificate from Southbury Music Studio and iTunes gift cards.

Food and Class of 2013 T-shirts were sold during the event to help raise funds for the Junior Class.

Overall, Ms Metz said the night went very smooth.

“The Junior Class Council members did a great job of organizing and running the event,” said Ms Metz. “[Co-advisor] Jolene Swann and myself… could not be more proud of our council members.”

Participating bands were Maybelle,  Awkward Shark, Paradigm,  Acoustic Theatre, Bread Pilot, Memento Mori, Anchors Away, Doofus, Blackout Image, Smokebomb Mondays, and Understatement.

Votes for the winning band were collected via text messages throughout the night.

Junior Class officers are President Rachel Divanno, Vice President Anna Grillo, Treasurer Chris Robinson, and Secretary John Vaugn. Rachel did most of the coordinating and all the officers played a big role in orchestrating the Battle of the Bands, according to class council member Caroline Kingsley.

“As for Battle of the Bands, I felt it went great,” said Caroline, following the event. “There was a large variety of music, from a band that was only acoustic to a band screaming all their lyric, to a ska band that incorporated brass instruments into their music. Everyone was there for one sole purpose, and that was to listen to and appreciate their own peers’ or child’s music, which was just awesome to see.”

The Junior Class Council sold at least 200 tickets for $10 for the event, Caroline said.

“Overall, I was really pleased with the event and how smoothly the changes from band to band went and the great turnout,” she said.