The Rainbow Room was packed on Saturday, May 28 as Vancouver Island bands and solo-artists performed for a sold-out audience.
Thirteen performers gathered at the Port Alberni venue in attempts to win the third annual Zattzoo project’s Youth Battle of the Bands.
The Zattzoo project is a Port Alberni association that strives to raise funds for community youth projects and to promote young musicians in the community, in memory of Zakkaree Coss.
The battle was organized and run by mother and son duo, Kim Blake and Dallas Ward.
This year the amount of performers more than doubled from the six entries in last year’s battle.
Each act was given 10 to 12 minutes each to showcase their music to a panel of three local judges.
The first place winners were Non Stop Talk, a blues/rock trio made up of vocalist and guitar player Collin Massie from Campbell River, bass player Aaron Thurlborn from Campbell River and drummer Christopher Banks, originally from Port Alberni. They won $1000 cash, a future booking with Five Acre Productions and a spot at the Alberni Valley Fall Fair.
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“They’re set was second up which makes it pretty impressive that they won first place at the event,” Dallas Ward said.
Scoring second place and a $500 cash prize was The Atlas Project from Port Alberni.
The best local performance went to singer-songwriter Sydney Reynolds who took home a $500 gift card for Triangle Music for her win.
One hundred dollar cash prizes were also given out for winners in the top five category. Top drummer went to Lyden Buttnor from the Courtenay band Liberatia, top vocalist went to Jesse Turner from the Victoria band, Aetherion, top lead guitarist was awarded to Jake Harper from The Atlas Project, top bass guitarist went to Aneal Dhaliwal from the Victoria-based band, Aetherion and special talent was awarded to Rowan Osbourne from the Victoria band My Boulder House.
Ticket sales from the sold-out show will help fund next year’s battle.
“Our obligation as an association is to drain the account once a year and that’s what we do with battle of the bands,” Kim Blake said.
karly.blats@albernivalleynews.com