The week of March 26, leading up to Ithaca College Bureau of Concert’s “The Sound Off,” students were buzzing with excitement. Posters began popping up on bulletin boards across campus, calling students to vote for their favorite performers at the upcoming event. 

Marketed as a “battle of the bands,” The Sound Off had an impressive lineup of new and familiar names in the IC music scene. The student bands Three Holes, delia-h, Red-40, Bisexual Lighting, All Nine Bite and Beer Cat were booked to play and the day before the show, rappers AKABURNZYY and XAYY were announced as part of the lineup. Ultimately, the three winners of “The Sound Off” were delia-h, XAYY and Beer Cat.

Sophomore Noah Robinson, lead guitarist and backing vocalist of Bisexual Lighting, said that even aside from the competition, “The Sound Off” had a great group of performers.

“Everyone there is so wonderful,” Robinson said. “I’m so excited to just play a bill with them.”

An Instagram post from the BOC stated that the winners of “The Sound Off,” which were decided through an audience vote, would not only receive a cash prize of up to $1,000, but also the opportunity to perform at IC KicksBack. IC KicksBack is the end-of-semester concert that last year brought Laundry Day and Ritt Momney to the stage outside of the Campus Center.

Sophomore Emily Nocella, member of the BOC’s logistics team, said that having student performers at IC Kicksback is incredibly important in building community.

“Ithaca and the music community are so intertwined and it’s just nice to be able to have everyone showcase their talent,” Nocella said. “It’s great for students to have this opportunity to perform in front of their peers.” 

Delia Vaisey ’23, vocalist of delia-h, had a professional motivation to compete for the opening spot at IC KicksBack. 

“The opportunity to perform and open for somebody with some clout in the music world is a pretty cool opportunity,” Vaisey said. “I would love to be able to talk to somebody who has more experience touring and marketing themselves because that’s something I’m starting to take more seriously.” 

Vaisey’s music is lyric-driven, with support from her band members who provide the full instrumentation that Vaisey needs to achieve the combination of punk, folk and rock characteristics that make her music unique. Vaisey explained that having that full instrumentation is important to her, especially because music is such a collaborative art form.

“I’ve been writing songs forever, like as long as I can remember,” Vaisey said. “I’ve been performing in bands for the past four or five years. I kind of have always written songs, and it’s nice to be able to realize them more fully with other people.”

This is the first time that the BOC has held a competition to decide what student bands or performers will be joining the headliners at IC Kicksback. For many of the competing musicians, this was an unfamiliar challenge, especially when their competitors were friends and members of the tight knit music community at the college. 

Sophomore Owen Froelich, vocalist and lead guitarist of Beer Cat, said that competition against his friends brought a strange sense of excitement to his preparation for the show. 

“It’s weird to be doing a competition that’s ‘us vs them,’” Froelich said. “I never really want it to be ‘us vs them,’ but there is something nice about it.” 

Sophomore Alex Siegelson, bassist and occasional vocalist of Beer Cat, said the competition element of “The Sound Off” adds a unique challenge for the band. 

“I think it’s pushing everyone to be the best version of themselves that they can,” Siegelson said.

Peter Gillen ’24, drummer of Red-40, said competition is not uncommon in the music world, but something like The Sound Off brings in a new element. 

“I think at a lot of shows, you kind of have some unspoken competition,” Gillen said. “But with this it’s literally in plain text. I definitely feel [like this is] a different feeling for me. It has been a bit more intense”

In addition to Gillen, Red-40 also consists of juniors Dominick Petrucci on bass and Brennan Feeny on guitar. Both Petrucci and Feeny are also part of Bisexual Lighting, another band on “The Sound Off’s” lineup. Petrucci said this did not feel like a conflict of interest to him, because both of the bands fulfill different needs for him creatively.

“I’m in [Bisexual Lighting] for percussion,” said Petrucci. “I’m in [Bisexual Lighting] to back up my other friends, while Red-40 is kind of more just like the inner machinations of me and Brennan’s minds.”

In order to accommodate for the number of musicians that would be playing in “The Sound Off,” the BOC limited each act to 15 minutes of music. Robinson said the process of selecting a setlist for a show like this was new and challenging.

“We are used to playing smaller sets, but never ‘OK, choose your three best [songs],’” Robinson said. “It’s been really reflective to be like ‘what are our strongest things? What will make people happiest?’ Because it’s all crowd-based.”

Since the crowd was deciding its future through a vote, each band put emphasis on its crowd work. However, Ford Hall was not designed with space in mind for dancing or moshing. The space is used most frequently for concerts and recitals, featuring over 600 seats for the audience to settle in and watch the show. 

Sophomore Zell Kurth, guitarist and lead vocalist of Three Holes, said she was nervous about taking the stage in a venue like Ford Hall. 

“If it was people moshing and standing, they don’t care if you mess up a note or whatever,” Kurth said. “People sitting — that’s very ominous to me.”

Before the competition, Petrucci thought of ways to engage the crowd, despite the strange venue. His goal was to break through the metaphorical wall between the audience and performer. 

“I kind of started liking music because of the idea of just breaking down traditional systems when it comes to performing,” Petrucci said. “It’s definitely a challenge to play in Ford Hall, but I definitely think I’m up to the challenge to try and make it into an immersive, different space.”

However, “The Sound Off” did not go off without a hitch. Around noon on the day of the event, all of the performing musicians received an email from senior Trevor Torres, the BOC president. The email stated that due to technical difficulties surrounding the booking of sound equipment, the BOC had decided to postpone The Sound Off. 

The email did not specify a new date or time, but promised that this was just a delay of the event, not a cancellation. Senior Ryan Vincent, drummer of delia-h, said the musicians were not ready to give up that easily.

In a group chat created by senior Ben Rymer, guitarist of delia-h, the musicians realized that collectively they had the equipment that the BOC lacked through their different organizations. A new promotional flyer was released on Instagram via Doghouse Media. Underneath the title “BOC Sound Off” was a new subtitle: “with help from Unknown Stage, Open Mic and Doghouse.” 

This teamwork only increased the sense of community in Ford Hall that night. Whatever concerns there were about crowd energy were soon debunked. By the time Three Holes took the stage, the whole front row was standing and delia-h was the first group of the night to bring members of the audience up onto the stage to dance. 

During delia-h’s set, one of Rymer’s guitar strings broke. From the audience, Froleich jumped up, quick to push through the crowd that had made its way to the stage, in order to give Rymer his own guitar to play for the rest of delia-h’s set. 

First-year student Miles Terranova of All Nine Bite said that even though the group had not played any official shows before “The Sound Off,” they were still familiar with the other performers through their participation in IC Open Mic and attending other shows in Ithaca. 

“We know these people, we see them around,” Terranova said. “I thought it would be really fun to be able to play alongside them for the first time.” 

The final performance of “The Sound Off” was Beer Cat. As they invited audience members up to dance during their final song, the rowdy crowd did not stay to the side. Instead, audience members and other performers stood among the band members, even leaning on them and swaying along with them. If there was any doubt about the community in the room, it was gone by the time the show was over. First-year student James Smith, also of All Nine Bite, said he felt supported by the other performers. 

“The past couple weeks after the lineup came out people from the competing bands [would] pop into rehearsals and be like, ‘Hey, great job guys,’” Smith said. “It’s really less competition, more community.”

As the musicians wait patiently for the announcement of the winners, the sense of community only grows stronger. Gillen expressed the feeling reflected by most of the competitors. “[Red-40] wants to be at IC KicksBack, and we hope everyone else does,” Gillen said. “Screw the competition, let all of us play.”