Highland Park, IL, July 17 – As part of their winnings for making the semi-final round at the 10th annual Bitter Jester Battle of the Bands teen music competition, the top seven winning bands from the Chicago area will perform in concert at the city’s legendary venue Navy Pier’s LandShark Beer Garden on July 26th from 2:00pm to 8:00pm, located at 600 East Grand Avenue. Admission is free. Billed as the Bitter Jester® Battle Top 7 Concert – a la American Idol Winners Top 10 Tour – these talented teen musicians will be reaping their well-earned prize when they hit the stage while gaining further exposure and added confidence.
The winning teen bands performing are: 2015’s Grand Champion Profusion (Bartlett), Runner-up Xazz (Highland Park), Honorable Mention The Ska-lers (Northbrook, Deerfield), North Korean Beach Party (Wilmette, Skokie), Van Buren & Wells (Mundelein, Lindenhurst, Buffalo Grove), St. Nicolas Cage (Northbrook, Evanston), and Senna (Chicago, Lindenhurst, Grayslake).
As a musical mentor, Nicolas DeGrazia, creator of the Bitter Jester Battle of the Bands, has been encouraging, inspiring and promoting Chicago’s talented youth for over a decade. His music competition provides these young musicians ages 13 to 19 with myriad opportunities to hone their musical skills – gigs in front of a crowd, music education via master classes by sponsors such as School of Rock, equipment, studio recording studio time for the top four bands, and more. It doesn’t hurt that this year’s Battle of the Bands had more than $27,000 in combined cash and prizes up for grabs.
“Keep on playing, pursue your musical talent, and always be pushing yourself to write originals,” says DeGrazia. “Bands only get better with practice. I encourage them to re-enter until they age-out and we’ve had multiple repeat contenders. As a result, the quality of the performances only gets better each year.”
Bitter Jester Battle of the Bands takes place annually each Friday night in June at Port Clinton Square in
Downtown Highland Park. This year’s Grand Champion Band – Profusion – was selected and crowned on July 4 in Highland Park preceding the City’s fireworks display in front of 3,000 people. Twenty-five bands comprised of musicians aged 13-19, representing 36 Chicagoland communities, competed in the Battle of the Bands 2015. At stake, $27,000+ in combined cash and prizes. Two finalists were selected by a panel of celebrity judges; the grand champion was chosen via crowd cheers and an audience meter.
Since its inception in 2006, the Bitter Jester Battle of the Bands has hosted 50 Battles, featured 600 teenagers representing 130 bands – from a 14-person wash-tub band to solo performers playing rock, ska, funk, punk, jazz, big band, and everything in between. Past winners, now out of college like The Fleeting Suns and Brownie Mountain, have had much success in the real world. The competition has grown exponentially since 2006, steadily increasing the number of battling bands and tripling its cash and prizes from 2013 to 2014 and again from 2014 to 2015.
Links: Bitter Jester Battle Reel
The Ska-lers – Honorable Mention
JPEGS/Video/Audio: Available upon request
Created by four-time Emmy® award-winning Bitter Jester Creative, the Battle of the Bands is sponsored in large part by the City of Highland Park plus over three dozen local and Chicagoland businesses. Their donations are used as prizes so that none of the Semi-Finalists or non-competing opening acts go home empty handed.
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