Indigo Lane will be one of the bands opening for The Driver Era at the Bullstock Festival Concert in April. ORACLE PHOTO/ARIANA RIVADENEIRA HERRERA

USF’s Crescent Hill was lit with colorful LED lights and hundreds of students on Friday night at the annual Battle of the Bands showcase. 

USF’s Campus Activities Board hosted the event, which saw almost 400 students float around Crescent Hill to enjoy music, food and a Volkswagen photo booth from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

The show featured six student-made bands, two of which won the opportunity to open for The Driver Era at the Bullstock Music Festival on April 10. 

The bands that appeared on this year’s Battle of the Bands were:

Each band had 15 minutes to perform original music for the audience and judges, with 20-minute intervals reserved for resetting the stage for the next band.

Once all six bands completed their sets, CAB opened voting to three judges and the student audience to pick the winners. 

Indigo Lane won the audience choice, while my dead roommate won the judge’s vote. 

Related: USF Battle of the Bands former competitors encourage others to take the stage 

Indigo Lane, a six-member, all-USF alternative indie rock band, formed a year and a half ago.

The band competed in last year’s Battle of the Bands showcase alongside 10 other local bands, but lost.

However, the band returned to the competition this year with a new drummer and a stronger will to win.

The band released one EP, titled “Summer Party,” with six songs in mid-July, according to their website.

Conner Dirksen, a sophomore contemporary commercial music major who plays the electric guitar for Indigo Lane, said the band felt “phenomenal” about the win. 

Dirksen said students who voted for Indigo Lane to win the competition can expect even more from the band at Bullstock.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said. “We’ve come a long way since last year when we played, because we were still so new. So we’re a completely different band than we were last year.”

Other Indigo Lane bandmates include its vocalist Annabelle Lopiano, electric bassist Alejandra Acero, electric guitarist Connor Trimble and drummer Laiba Nasir.

Related: USF Battle of the Bands showcases music scene ahead of Bullstock 

My dead roommate, a progressive rock band, performed at the Battle of the Bands Friday night. ORACLE PHOTO/ARIANA RIVADENEIRA HERRERA

The judge’s choice, my dead roommate, a progressive rock band, was formed a year and a half ago and consists of five members — three of whom are USF students. 

Aspen Golembeski, a junior geology major who plays the electric bass for my dead roommate, said the band has not released any music yet but plans to do so by the end of the year. 

Anthony Abarca, a junior mechanical engineering major who performs vocals and plays electric guitar for the band, said he is excited for the band to open at Bullstock.

Abarca said that in addition to his band, he also wanted Indigo Lane to win Battle of the Bands — as they had previously worked together and enjoyed the experience. 

“We wanted them to win, we like them, we really like them,” Abarca said. “We saw them play multiple times.”

Other members of my dead roommate’s band are its drummer, Jovanni Salas, electric guitarist and vocalist Zach Maulfair and keyboardist Nathan Yam, who is on a short leave to focus on academics.

Acero, a sophomore contemporary commercial music major and electric bassist for Indigo Lane, said both winning bands have a history of performing together.

The two bands have previously played at The Orpheum and, more recently, at genCLEO’s Concert for Climate Action at the Marshall Student Center Amphitheatre on Saturday.

“We love my dead roommate,” Acero said. “They’re such great guys, and their music is really cool. We really like them.”

Related: USF Bullstock gets rocked by rain and ends early 

Dillon Pillows, a junior cybersecurity major, said he went to Battle of the Bands with a friend and thought the event was “pretty sick.” 

“I went into it expecting there to be some decent bands, but they exceeded my expectations,” Pillows said. “I really liked pretty much every band, to be honest.”

Pillows said he voted for Indigo Lane and Area of Refuge to win the competition. And although Area of Refuge’s loss felt “disappointing,” he said he enjoyed all the performances. 

“I voted for Indigo Lane because I thought they had the most complete-sounding songs that flowed very nicely,” he said. “The singer was my favorite of all the bands that performed.”

Venkata Dinavahi, a senior computer science major, said he chose to attend the Battle of the Bands for a “convenient excuse” to dress up and hang out with friends.

“I really like the ability to just kind of get together as a group and talk in person,” Dinavahi said. “People, even in strong friend groups, sometimes go months without actually interacting with each other in person.”

Dinavahi went to the event with three friends — also USF students — and said the group was already familiar with a couple of bands before the showcase.

And while Dinavahi said he typically listens to “loud, abrasive music,” including electronic rap, he enjoyed listening to indie music at the event. 

“A lot of these bands we’ve actually heard of before,” Dinavahi said. “They’ve been in previous events, so we know them. Ask Me Later and Area of Refuge, we’ve heard them both here and on top of the parking garages.”

Related: OPINION: USF’s music scene is the lifeblood of the campus

Dinavahi said he would return to Battle of the Bands, adding that he enjoyed the event’s music and atmosphere.

“There are really people just doing it for the love of the game,” Dinavahi said. “And it’s like, yeah, let’s just come down and have a fun time.”

Additional reporting by Isabella Oefelein.