Farmers’ Ball semi-finals are at the Bottleneck on Saturday

Should you ever wonder about the power of youth and online voting, look no further than the eight semi-finalists for KJHK and Student Union Activities’ Farmers’ Ball. The annual battle of the bands ended voting earlier this week, winnowing 16 local bands and musicians to the eight performing at the Bottleneck next Saturday, April 18.

Performing for nearly $4000 in prize money are Arc Flash, Dean Monkey & the Dropouts, LION, Maybe Not, No Cave, Toughies, Via Luna and Wolf, the Rabbit. Perhaps most notably, this year’s semi-finalists do not include the somewhat obvious larger local acts as Various Blonde, Rev Gusto, Westerners and the Phantastics, all of whom were in the quarter-final online voting.

Then again, given that the winner of Farmers’ Ball is usually a better indicator of what’s up-and-coming than what already is — winners of recent years include Psychic Heat and Forrester — this bodes well for the future of local music.

What also bodes well for local music’s future is that not only have KJHK and SUA continued with the cash prize money of $2000 for first place and $1000 for second, they’re also offering third and fourth place finishers $500 and $250, respectively.

The KJHK Facebook page will be sharing posts featuring the eight semi-finalists over the course of the next week, if you’d like to bone up before the show.

KJHK’s Farmers’ Ball semi-finals take place at the Bottleneck on Saturday, April 18. Details on that show can be found here.