Battle Profile: Nelsen
“The momentum was really good,” Nick Nelsen said. “We were doing four gigs in a one month span.”
On the first day of February last year, Nelsen (the band) beat out Hot Tub Wrestler, Ethan More or Less and the Able Dogs in round one of BandWagon’s 2020 Battle of the Bands. The success was three years in the making. Nelsen had also competed in 2018 and 2019, never to make it past the first round.
Now, armed with tearjerkers new and old, Nelsen is poised and ready to make the audience “feel” when the Battle of the Bands returns on March 12.
Battle Profile: Lady Denim
“We were starting to get the ball rolling, you know, the snowball effect,” recalls Lundeen, Lady Denim’s lead vocalist, of the band’s momentum heading into March 2020, “and then it all got paused.”
Lundeen looks back on the band’s last headliner at the Aggie Theatre in Fort Collins, where the band walked out to a crowd of 450. At a show a month later on March 13, just as news of COVID-19 began to flare up, the band walked out to a crowd of less than 50.
“The silver lining of it all was that we were able to set aside time and record,” Lundeen reflects. Trading rehearsals for recording sessions not only brought the band closer, but also yielded the seeds for what Lundeen said will be their next release.
Battle Profile: Hannah & The Cuddies
Hannah Rodriguez knew that The Cuddies were entering a new chapter in January of 2020 when they won the first round of BandWagons’ Battle of the Bands. She eagerly planned their finalist set and looked forward to the future. But the future had changes in store.
So now, after a year-long unplanned intermission, losing / gaining new band members and the optimism of a vaccine, Hannah is ready for The Cuddies’ first gig in 2021.
Battle Profile: Graham Good & The Painters
Graham Good is relentlessly upbeat. Not only is that really his last name, it’s his nature, and it’s the band’s aesthetic. Even the band’s website greets you with “I believe good things are coming.” He wants people to be happy.
So after a year-long delay between the semi-finals and the finals of our Battle Of The Bands, he’s ready to rock.
Album Review: Bones Muhroni – Triquetrum
Bones Muhroni and it’s figurehead Crew Rienstra have been a lot of things over the years: cheeky, folksy, a touch uncouth, but always a good time. Triquetrum is the happy and painful accident that, in my opinion, gave us his best music to date. It has some of the country quality old friends and fans of Bones have come to love on “The Ballad of Clifford Griffin,” but musically Rienstra has clearly moved beyond that being his primary sound.
BandWagon Magazine Battle of the Bands @ Moxi Theater – Greeley
The Great Salmon Famine, Soul Solum and Igaus Davis at BandWagon Magazine Battle of the Bands in Greeley on March 24th 2018,Battle of The Bands @ Moxi Theater
Photography by Ben Stivers
Battle of The Bands @ Hodi’s Half Note
Photography by Ben Stivers