The fourth annual Battle of the Bands brought together four of the Bow Valley’s best bands last Wednesday (Dec. 16) for the showcase concert finals at Tommy’s Bar and Grill, with The Samm Bailey Band being crowned victor.
Bailey faced stiff competition from acts Castle Walls, No Sudden Moves and The Ladder Mics, but through adversity and determination, Bailey was able to take first place, which includes a $1,000 cash prize provided by Molson, and a performance at The Banff Centre in the new year.
Bands were judged on original content, showmanship and crowd draw, with Bailey edging out the win by showing his determination to perform by putting a new band lineup together just prior to the start of competition.
“I had a completely different band, so that changed things a lot, but the dynamics between everyone worked really well and obviously it paid off in the end,” Bailey said on bringing in Paddy Byrne (fiddle), Shawn Edge (drums), Jacob Posacki (guitar) and Michael Kragt (bass).
Bailey lost his usual band members due to unforeseen circumstances in the holiday season, leaving him in a tight scramble to find replacements willing to learn his material at short notice.
“These guys just stepped up and said, ‘we’ll play with you,’ and it ended up working out really well,” Bailey said. “Jacob’s been playing with me for quite some time, but the other guys had just joined me. I have a jam space that I rent out for people to use and they had gotten ahold of me because they needed a place to rehearse and then they invited me to come jam with them one day.”
Bailey had a month and a half to teach his material to the new members, with a few changes made along the way.
“It was just a matter of them learning how to play them, and we did some different arrangements, obviously, by adding a fiddle player, so that was an interesting thing to throw into the mix,” Bailey said. “Once we figured out how we were going to do the solo parts, it all ended up working out really well.
“Honestly. we were just in it to have fun, we didn’t really enter the competition to win, we did it just for fun. So when we went in we just said ‘if we screw the songs up it’s not a big deal – we’re just here to have a good time.’”
A great time, professionalism and perseverance paid off for the band in the end, leading to the win, with organizers and audience members remarking it was the best battle of the bands as of yet.
“Out of all of the bands that played, any one of them could have won that night, it just came down to who was shining just a bit more. That’s why it was so tight for the judges,” said organizer Gary Gonis. “As a promoter, I couldn’t be judging, so that’s why we had The Banff Centre’s Henry Ng from recording and music, Bruce McComb, Adrian Haggis and Christian Janes of Bighorn Sounds Symposium face the tough night of judging.
“What I liked was everyone had their own unique style, they were all different and you could tell with their different sounds and styles. I think it was just the X factor and that night they just had a little more shine. But all the musicians that played that night are all at the same level, but Samm trying to scramble to get a band to perform his songs in such a short period really showed the desire that he wanted to play.”
