Photo courtesy of Lena Martinez.
Max Martinez, a freshman at Vestavia Hills High School, is a guitarist in the band Gridlock.
Max Martinez has been strumming the strings of a guitar for about four years now, and he’s getting ready to take the stage again for this year’s Rocky Ridge Battle of the Bands event.
Started in 2018, this marks the sixth annual event that brings middle schoolers and high schoolers from across the Birmingham metro area to live out their rockstar dreams. Organizers skipped the event in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We'll have 400 people out there, and people bring chairs and stuff. We do the big fake checks and do a check presentation. And we'll have a tour bus parked there for the kids to hang out on and a green room where they can kind of be hidden back behind the bus,” Bob Barker, co-event organizer, said. “We just treat them like rock stars, and there's no real reason for any of it except to support these young people pursuing and playing music.”
Martinez is a freshman at Vestavia Hills High School. He currently performs with a five-piece band called Gridlock, but he first performed in the Battle of the Bands two years ago, winning second place in the middle school category with a different group. This year will be his third time at the event and his second competing with Gridlock.
“The first couple of times I did it, it's just nerve-wracking,” Martinez said. “You're up there, and you're super anxious. But as you get more comfortable with playing live, it gets really enjoyable. I feel like the longer you play live, the more you can really get into it and have fun with it. But it's definitely a great experience to have.”
Those stage jitters are part of the reason organizers try to make the event mimic a professional setting while emphasizing community. Mason Music and Anovys, a software company based in Vestavia, are two of this year’s big sponsors, but Barker says the rest is a grassroots effort.
“Everything else is literally just people throwing in 300 bucks at a time, but it takes almost $7,000 to put the event on,” Barker said. “That's staging, professional lights, professional sound. There's a VIP area and everything like that, and somebody donates the food. It is one of the most organic — it’s not unorganized at all, but it's just un-corporate. It's just really everybody getting together to do it.”
The event usually features about 10 bands, and it’s free for kids to participate. They each get to play a set, and judges pick the winners, who receive a cash prize. At the end of the show, performers get together for an impromptu jam session, allowing the kids an opportunity to collaborate and connect with other musicians.
“I'm really looking forward to seeing new people play,” Martinez said, “because a lot of the people that would usually be playing up there that I've played with every year aren't going to be up there. We're gonna have a lot of new people up there.”
Gridlock’s Battle of the Bands performance can be seen on April 19 starting at 5 p.m. The free event will take place in the parking lot of Rocky Ridge Plaza, 2531 Rocky Ridge Road, from 5 to 9 p.m.
