Last Sunday was the finals in the Ultimate Music Challenge in Viejas. I was one of the judges. The UMC was a battle of the (cover) bands contest that offered a $20,000 grand prize. Second place won $8,000, and third place took $4,000. It was a 12-week process, occurring every Sunday night, and I was there judging it from the beginning. It was a blast, although sometimes taxing on the soul. There were some awful bands, some great ones, and a lot of mediocrity as you would expect in such a contest.

For me, the highlights were a Velvet Underground tribute band called New York Underground that played all the early, sexy Lou Reed stuff and had an androgynous lead singer who himself appeared to be hooked on heroin. They weren’t great, but I do love that Lou Reed music. There was a funny nerd band called The Pocket Protectors who came out dressed in lab coats, flood pants and masking tape holding their black-rim eyeglasses together. They played songs like Mr. Roboto from Styx and were hilarious to watch. There was Metal Snake, who I liked for the name alone, and because the backup singer kept opening his shirt to expose his hairless, skinny chest, which was so gay, but so perfect for the music they were covering. There was a fantastic Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band that, in my mind, was flawless. They got eeked out however by Lady Dottie and the Diamonds who the other judges thought were better.

Anyway, Sunday was the finals. There were four contestants fighting for 3 places: Lady Dottie and the Diamonds (blues and rock) Cash’d Out (Johnny Cash tribute band), Detroit Underground (funk and soul), and Crush (soul and R&B).

Lady Dottie came out first. In the semi-finals they had a strong outing and rocked the room with a well-arranged, rollercoasterian set. Everyone had them pegged as a favorite going into the finals, but unlike last time, they bulldozed through the songs, never really varying their tempo or song selections, so that they all blurred together. Next came Detroit Underground, another band who tore it up in the semis but seemed relatively flatfooted in the finals. After D.U. came Cash’d Out who played a near-flawless set and, at times, made us feel as though it were really Johnny Cash up there talking and singing to us. Highlight was the song, “Jackson” which they nailed with the help of a June Carter sound-alike. Then came Crush. Crush opened their set solidly. They began with a cool quasi-instrumental groove with the keyboardist going nuts on a vocoder. Then the girls came out. They had three hot chick singers who were dressed in '50s private-eye overcoats and hats and did a stunning, choreographed version of "Fever," after which they stripped off the overcoats revealing their sexy-mama hot pants and did a Beyoncé song and a couple of other dance and soul numbers, which were good, but the vocals were shaky. In the middle of the set they hit a lull from which they never recovered. Crush ended up taking third place. Detroit Underground came in second and Cash'd Out won the 20k.

Detroit Underground takes 2nd place

To announce the winners, they had the judges come on stage. It was Dave Patrone, Gene “Negro” Perry, Jaime Valle and me. We each held over-sized checks to give to their respective winners.

I tell you, before getting on stage, we were all a little concerned. A lot of these fans took this contest very seriously (as if they stood to win the money themselves). They are very protective of their bands. Throughout the 12-week contest, people kept coming up to get me to vote for their favorite band, or explain why their favorite band was better than the others, or to offer excuses when they felt their band wasn’t up to par (“The sound man isn’t putting enough vocals in the mic” etc.). One woman even tried to get me to disqualify another band for bringing in a ringer, which wasn’t the case. It was the kind of stuff you might see if Christopher Guest made a mockumentary about the battle of the bands circuit.

So yeah, we were a bit concerned getting up on that stage in front of all those fanatics. But you know, judges are warriors. Dave Patrone spoke first and gave his obligatory, “All the bands were great and it was so close,” speech. Then Gene took the mic to announce the third place winner. When he said, “And the winner of third place and $4,000 is. . . Crush,” the place went apeshit. People were hissing and booing. Many thought they should've won first place. Others thought they shouldn’t have won anything. Nobody was happy about that announcement. Then I announced second place winner (Detroit Underground, 8k), and there was a smattering of applause, some cheers, some boos. Then Jaime Valle came out to announce the winner. At first they wouldn’t let him speak. People were still booing and hissing about the previous announcements. So Jaime lashed back at them, kind of scoldingly, even cursed a bit. “We’ve been here for fucking 12 weeks,” he said, or something to that effect. At that point people began heckling Jaime and booing him. It was a debacle, and it was riotous.

Then he began to announce the winner. At that point I think most of the people in the room were thinking it was going to be Lady Dottie. Probably because, they had brought the most people in and, being a Johnny Cash cover band, Cash’d Out is not really the type of band who would necessarily work in the casino lounge circuit. The other, more danceable bands seemed more appropriate to this venue. But we, as judges, didn’t care about that. We were grading on the musicianship and showmanship regardless of genre. When Jaime announced Cash'd Out, all the Cash fans cheered, but all the Dottie fans started booing, and heckling and being overall douchebags about the whole thing. The other malcontents joined in and there was a little boofest going on for a bit. I began to feel vulnerable up there, exposed, like a Blackhawk hovering over Ramadi. I kept waiting for that first beer bottle to hit somebody in the face and kept scanning for a place to make a quick exit. But then Cash’d Out came on stage to take pictures with their over-sized checks and they were so grateful, and shocked and happy that it made all the grumbling and moaning and booing worth it.

While the shutters clicked and the bulbs sparked, I slunk away to the bar and ordered a beer and a shot. I needed it badly.

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