Leamington’s Odyssey wins top prize in Battle of the Bands

Organised by Bear Profit, a young enterprise group of year 12 Myton School pupils, the event saw eight bands battle it out for the title of winner of the inaugural competition.

As one of the three judges I was amazed by the quality on show from the young hopefuls, with all three of us in agreement that there were no bad bands.

There was also an impressive variety of musical genres from the acoustic virtuoso with a heart-wrenching voice Jake Byrne, the guitar shredding of As She Burns and the versatility and ingenuity of the Forlorn Watchmen.

Meanwhile A Minor Improvement provided some lovely harmonies and the Mooseheads performed some difficult songs with great aplomb.

Eventually we were forced to whittle it down to a top three, which was no mean feat with no band scoring less than 27 out of a maximum of 40 with judges giving marks out of ten for preparation, interaction with the crowd, presentation and performance.

In third place came the lively Big Beat Manifesto who worked the crowd well, were well rehearsed and performed some really catchy self-penned songs.

In second came Rewards and Revenge who had a mighty stage presence and a performance that was full of energy.

But for the judges there was one stand out group, with two judges giving Odyssey Blue a maximum score of 40, and the other 39.

The quartet of Ryan Crowley, Lewis Fagge, Harvey Thompson and Dan O’Reagon put on a great show, with the crowd’s arms raised and clapping along.

The band took it in their stride when a string broke, and managed to keep the crowd entertained with jokes while they fixed the problem, although I would definitely suggest they stick to music rather than stand up comedy.

Performing their own songs, they gave a polished performance, looked the part for the music they were playing, and showed a good variety. I particularly enjoyed the subtle overlapping of the bass and guitar at various points.

The band were delighted to claim victory, and frontman Ryan Crowley said: “We are really ecstatic.

“It’s the best feeling I’ve had in my life, the crowd were amazing and it’s a great venue.”

Bassist Lewis Fagge added: “We got a great reaction, I really enjoyed it. Next step world domination!”

The group, who have already done a few local gigs, are hoping this is just the start of something exciting for them and guitarist/ vocalist Harvey Thompson said: “We will just keep gigging.

“We try to be a bit different, and it’s nice to win because we do our own stuff which means we can put what we want to say in there.

“We weren’t nervous on stage, just excited, we were really enjoying ourselves up there.”

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