Blues Society of Western PA - Newsletter

First, I want to thank all the bands that entered and all those who attended the three rounds of the 2007 IBC competition. It was my first IBC and it was both exciting and entertaining. It proved a couple things to me-there is no shortage of blues talent in the area and we do have a following. We did not have a lot of time to put this together and advertise. Our fellow society members in West Virginia were way ahead of us. They had eighteen contestants set up before we started. It was well advertised and they did well. We just had to hope we could attract enough talent to throw a good competition. We did it in three parts: round one at the Thunderbird, round two at Jimmy G’s, and the final at Moondog’s. We had four solo acts with diverse styles and nine bands.

The excitement of seeing these bands play the hottest twenty minutes of music they can, while trying to impress judges and guests alike was just tremendous. As timekeeper, I could feel the pace intensify as each set went on. The judges had a tough job and the voting was so close-every single time.

Congratulations to the winners, Jeff Kelley winner of the Solo Act, and Jill West and Blues Attack winner of the Band Challenge.

For one, I cannot wait for the next IBC competition that we are going to hold all in one day! It will be on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at Cefalo's, Carnegie PA. Plan on being there if you are a fan and entering if you have a band.

-- Don Vecchio