While most of Baton Rouge was at the LSU baseball game or nestled at home Thursday night, 777 people were at Fred’s in Tigerland, cheering on bands you’ve never heard of.
The event was Tiger TV’s Battle of the Bands, which created what one lead singer calls a “life-changing moment.”
That’s the way Kate Oliver describes the moment she learned her band, Oat Soda, won the competition between six bands, including Mocassyn, The Bends, Wave Runner, Speak Easy, the Brasshearts Brass Band.
Kate Oliver, lead singer of the winning band, Oat Soda, plays at Tiger TV’s Battle of the Bands March 30, 2023, at Fred’s.
“It was incredible to be up there with my friends — getting to do a real life gig at Fred’s. We were all dancing and jumping,” said Oliver, an LSU senior music major.
Oat Soda is comprised of six people: Oliver, Arib Qureshi, Madison Mills, Marcus Heinse, Calvin Gaiennie and Crobitt Driskell. The six started practicing in October 2022.
If you’re wondering about the band name, the movie “The Big Lebowski” plays a role in that, as it is Heinse’s favorite movie.
“Marcus said he had been thinking of random band names for years. He told us about in the movie, ‘The Big Lebowski,’ a character walked up to the bar in the bowling alley and asked for two oat sodas. Once Marcus said it, we couldn’t get anything else in our heads. We were Oat Soda.”
New Orleans Brasshearts Brass Band plays at Tiger TV’s Battle of the Bands Thursday night at Fred’s Bar in Tigerland.
Oliver plans to graduate in May and head to New York City in the next year to pursue a career in musical theater. She said the band’s biggest hit of Thursday night was “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson.
“We wanted something everybody would know and sing along. We didn’t start doing that song until two or three weeks ago,” Oliver said.
They also did “Pyro” by Kings of Leon to show their “musicality and the steadiness of a song” and “Wide Open Spaces” by the Chicks.
Hotel Burgundy’s Josh Rovira MC’d Tiger TV’s Battle of the Bands. He hyped the crowd up between sets and announced the winner at the end of the battle.
“We wanted to mix a little bit of country in there,” Oliver said.
Gaiennie, a senior at LSU from Opelousas, said he was not surprised his band won the competition.
“We went in with good expectations. We were hoping to win. We knew we had a realistic performances,” he said, adding that he and the rest of the band is excited about the prize for the big win — two paying gigs at Fred’s.
Leave a Reply