Bandmageddon

Last night I was one of the judges for the school's rock band show-down.  It went fairly well, with a few notable exceptions:

1)  One of the bands was made up of mostly Music Department students, who decided to use mostly Music Department equipment - I was not asked if this was okay.  I walked into the competition and saw our drum set on the stage, along with most of our audio equipment.  I was assured on the spot that they would be taken care of.

2) One of the later bands hopped on stage - their drummer jumped behind our set and proceeded to pound on the heads with far more force that what is appropriate for jazz heads.  I went over to looked at me sheepishly and said "I didn't know they were going to do that" to which I replied "That's why we don't bring *our* stuff.

3)  The punk band that took the stage brought their mosh-pit for the show.  The event coordinator heard that this was going to happen and said beforehand that moshers would not be allowed in the door.  As it turns out, everyone was allowed in the door (I don't know how they would identify the moshers anyway), and the moshing proceeded all the way through the band's performance.  I don't have anything against moshing, nor punk bands, but this is an event sponsored by a public school.   If there is no means to prevent this kind of thing on our watch, then I'd rather not be one of the adult district employees in the room who has to share the liability.

4)  It turns out that the faculty judge sitting next to me is not only familiar with the afore mentioned punk band's members - he went so far as to pay their entry fee.  He proudly announced beforehand that he would be pulling for them - and gave them the highest marks before he had heard *any* of the bands perform.

Other than that, everything went as well as could be expected, except for a few butthurt bands that didn't win (the punk band being one of them... despite my colleague's biased input).  It would seem that we got most of our equipment back in good order, although I am not going to be in favor of bringing it out again. 

I think it's time maybe for me to bow out of this production.