Well, my band (middleman) has made it through to the final of the Battle of the Bands competition at The Arena in Kilmarnock so I should be happy, right?

Well, just sort-of. The winner of this competition isn’t going to be picked by a panel of judges or music experts - it’s going to be voted for by the crowd. There are plenty of venues that have gone down this road before and it never seems to end well. Most of the crowd at a gig for unsigned bands is going to be made up of friends of the various bands and they’re all going to vote for their friends. So the winning band will simply be the one that gets more friends to turn up. Not a great way of picking a best band.

The other problem with BotB competitions is that the winning band is always shunned by the ‘losers’. Having been on both sides of this, I can definitely say that it isn’t very pleasant. The ever-present undertone of a ‘fix’ in the voting can cause a lot of problems between bands, especially when you can’t see how the winning band actually managed it.

So it’s with a slight feeling of dread that we prepare for this. Could well end in disaster. Probably in disappointment.

Still hope we win though.