By Annie Henderson, News Staff

The battle is on to find the best musical talent Northeastern has to offer. Tuesday, students gathered in afterHOURS to support their picks for the first Northeastern Battle of the Bands. Campus radio station WRBB organized the event to showcase Northeastern talent and find a band to open for the new event known as Spring Bliss, the spring equivalent to the fall Block Party concert, which will take place April 21 in the Centennial Commons.

Spring Bliss is a project of the NU Big Four, a union of music-inclined groups on campus consisting of WRBB, Music and Entertainment Industry Student Association, Council for University Programming and music magazine Tastemakers. The headliner for Spring Bliss has yet to be announced.

Tuesday was round one of the Battle of the Bands, featuring nine bands with at least one Northeastern student or alumnus in each. Each act had something different to offer, with musical styles ranging from contemporary rock to experimental electronic. The four bands that will move on to the next round were announced at the end of the show: Jon Palmer and the New Complainers, an indie rock garage band; All These Elements, a pop punk band; Sand Reckoner, a psychedelic blues rock band; and Jet Black Sunrise, an alternative pop rock band. Round two will take place March 14.

The other five bands that played in the battle were Moth Vegas, The Motivated Sequence, Tardigrade, MoonJeli and San Frandisco.

The band that comes out on top at the end of the competition will headline its own afterHOURS show. But the real prize will be representing Northeastern onstage at the Spring Bliss concert, said senior chemistry major Marshall Brennan, an event organizer and WRBB general manager.

“We needed some sort of process to determine which Northeastern band is worthy to make it to the stage in Centennial,” Brennan said. “What we’re looking for is a band that can adequately promote themselves and wow an audience.”

To determine these two things, attendees were given two chances to vote. Upon arriving at the event, audience members were asked to put their tickets into a cup representing the band they came to see. This first vote, Brennan said, indicated which band was able to promote itself the best.     For the second step in the voting process, attendees chose the acts that they most enjoyed. Voting was conducted via Twitter feed, with computers set up around afterHOURS so students could vote for as many bands as they wanted. The feed was broadcast live on projection screens around the venue, displaying witty and occasionally scathing comments about the bands performing using Twitter. Participants could use their own Twitter account or use a feed provided by WRBB open on computers available at the event.

“Everyone sounded awesome,” said junior psychology major Eric Spicuzza, guitarist of All These Elements. “It’s nice to see such a wide variety of music.”

“We’re really excited to see so many people turn out,” said John Lesh, bass player of Sand Reckoner and sophomore business major. “This has definitely been one of our favorite shows; the energy was great and it’s been a good getting to know other Northeastern bands.”

For round one of the competition, each band was alloted 30 minutes onstage including set-up. They secured a spot in the lineup by sending in songs or Myspace links to WRBB. The four bands moving on to round two will be allowed to play a full 40 to 60 minute set in the next round.

“This is so much better than local and high school battles of the bands I’ve been to,” said Laura Trice, a sophomore music industry major. “The bands have so much more experience and the quality of the music is so much better.”

Although the battle was by nature a competition, most bands got involved simply to play a free live show. Andrew Jaques, bass player of Jon Palmer and the New Complainers, said winning was not the most important thing to his band – the prospect of playing a show and making new fans was what appealed to them.

“It’s about time we had a battle of the bands,” said Ron Bembry, a middler music industry major and WRBB staff member. “There are a lot of Northeastern bands with talent to showcase. We hope to make it an annual thing.”