The Battle of the Bands competition featured five competing bands and welcomed spectators in the auditorium to listen on March 25.

Dirty Mike and the Boys (seniors John Baroosian, Dan Baroosian, Mike McCormack, and junior Dan MacDonald) were the first band to perform, opening the event and amping up the atmosphere of the auditorium with a lively performance of “Sandman” by Metallica.

“Dirty Mike and the Boys were really entertaining to watch and they had tons of energy,” sophomore Julia Desautels said.

Broadcast, another competing band, consists of junior Nick Libby, sophomores Cristina Guarino and Ahren Shreeve, and freshman Jake Libby.

“Our band practiced a lot, and we felt ready,” Shreeve said. “The audience seemed really into it, and we performed really well, but we were kind of sad because we didn’t get to play our last song which was one of our best.”

Performing during the breaks was sophomore Kira Levenson, who sang “Hold Me Down” by Halsey, and freshman Liliko Uchida, who performed “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman along with other songs.

“Before the first song I was pretty nervous but I think it was more excitement than nerves,” Uchida said. “I always go onstage without any expectations because the things that could happen are different every time so I try not to, and now naturally don’t, expect anything at all; I just see where the ball rolls. It’s part of the thrill.”

The highlight of the evening came during the awards ceremony, revealing the winners of the battle. Ground Lift won the competition, and performed an encore of “This Is A Call” by the Foo Fighters upon audience encouragement.

Ground Lift members are seniors Mike McCormack and Mike Dutko and junior Dan MacDonald. The band feels that they owe much of their victory to their many hours of preparation, which included recording their own album prior to the battle.

“We started to get together a lot to play and we got to be really good friends with one another,” McCormack said. “We set an agenda for the album we were going to record, and we decided it would have the best songs I had written, including one that Mike wrote.”

Ground Lift’s experience and commitment to recording with another allowed them to be confident performers, contributing to their victory. The band was happy with their performance and felt that things went very smoothly.

“Our only real expectation was that we were gonna go out and try to be as insane as possible as we performed,” Dutko said. “I think [our win] just made us even more confident in our approach of trying to get everyone amped as hell.”

Audience members enjoyed the varying styles of each band, making the competition a consolidation of vastly different musical genres. Sophomore Rachel Ciulla noted that the different age groups of band members impacted the event as a whole.

“I really liked listening to the bands, it was interesting seeing a band full of freshmen and a band full of seniors, and realizing that even though there is an age difference they still have so much talent,” Ciulla said.

The Ceilings and Good Hope Vanilla also battled against the others, contributing to the energy in the atmosphere and adding to the musical variety of the event, creating a well-rounded evening for all audiences to enjoy. Performers and audiences alike thoroughly reveled in the Battle of the Bands; the band members in particular learned more about themselves as performers.

“We all thought we presented ourselves well and did our best and we don’t regret anything,” McCormack said. “Not even the little mistakes I would want to change.”