Jackson Prince co-editor-in-chief
Marty Schnapp news editor

Radio Airlift hosted Beverly’s second annual Battle of the Bands in the Salter Theatre on Wednesday. Run by senior president of Radio Airlift Matthew Sater, the event saw about 50 attendees, as well as approximately eight acts.
The show began with a four-chord song mashup presented by Ukulluminati, which comprises of sophomores Yasmine Jebeli and Sarah Rudolph. Jebeli feels that while her act did not go as planned, the event was a fun experience.
“It was overall hilarious. Personally, my act did not go as planned, but looking back it seems pretty funny. I think all the acts did amazing jobs and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for next year’s Battle of the Bands,” Jebeli said.
Later on in the afternoon, senior Cole Plante took the stage with senior Myra Molloy, collaborating under the band name P + M.
“It was great to see the support from the crowd as well, because frankly I can’t sing that well,” Plante said. “Having everyone cheer was pretty good.”
In a turn of events, Sater and junior Shiryu Mihara came on stage, adding the letters “R” and “O” in between “P” and “M” to help Plante ask Molloy to prom.
“Myra and I were just having fun on stage, and she didn’t know I was going to ask her to Prom, so that was great to see a surprise,” he said.
A band from outside of school, called “Alien vs. Predator vs. Brown vs. The Board of Education”, played original songs.
“Probably my favorite was the one with ‘Brown and the Board of Education’,” Plante said. “They were phenomenal; they had an original that was fantastic, and I loved talking to the lead singer.”
“Jabba and the Oriental”, who put themselves on the map with their rendition of Riff Raff’s “Dolce and Gabbana” at ASB’s talent show earlier this year, was forced to perform minus Jabba. However, they didn’t let this setback impede upon their performance, according to Plante, as they honored Jabba with covers of Bette Midler’s “The Rose” and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”.
“It’s a shame that Jabba left [Jabba and the Oriental], but The Oriental did a great job filling in and really commanded the stage,” he said.
For the second year in a row, the event was hosted by sophomore Bennett Gershwin. Last year’s show was less organized than Radio Airlift had hoped, and Gershwin wanted things to run more smoothly this time around.
“To be honest, it wasn’t much more organized this year, but I’d say that’s part of the charm of it. It’s more of a high school thing, and it’s more loose. If something goes wrong, it doesn’t really matter in a way,” Gershwin said.