Stone Rabbits rocked to victory Saturday at Student Government’s Battle of the Bands.
The band will open at Groovin’ on the Grounds in the spring.
Stone Rabbits competed against Pushing Pandas, The Broken Rubber Band and Winbourne at Free Speech Plaza on Saturday.
Ben Burbrink, Stone Rabbits’ vocalist and guitarist, said some of the songs performed Saturday  were written earlier in the week.
“We just wrote some of the songs this week, so this was the first crowd to hear them,” Burbrink said.
Stone Rabbits is a young band, with three members still in high school and two in their freshman year at the University, he said.
Burbrink said he attends Mandeville High School, while guitarist Grant Caldwell and drummer Sam Bachrack attend St. Paul’s High School in Covington. Bass player Tim Schiro and pianist Kenny Rider are freshmen at the University.
Ben Brignac, animal science freshman, and Gabrielle Becnel, biology freshman, said Stone Rabbits sounded more professional than some of the other bands at the event and had impressive vocals and guitars.
Philip Richard, agriculture freshman, said he enjoyed the event, and Natalie Savre, psychology freshman, added that the Stone Rabbits is the best band she has heard at the University thus far.
Burbrink said the band typically plays in the Mandeville and Covington area and was surprised by the win because it typically loses to older pop radio bands.
Beverly Suffern, SG director of programming, said the bands were judged on a scale from one to five on stage performance, crowd reaction, musicality, originality and overall score.
The event was judged by KLSU station manager Nick Boudreau, producer of Baton Rouge Blues Week and member of the Louisiana Music Commission Johnny Palazzotto, School of Music recording engineer Bill Kelley and 104.9 The X night disc jockey Jonas Spira.
Suffern said she was pleased with the turnout and thought moving the location from the Greek Amphitheater to Free Speech Plaza was a great decision.
“It went really well,” Suffern said. “We had a great turnout, and all the bands did a really great job.”
Battle of the Bands is hosted by Students on Target, a department of SG. SOT promotes University health and wellness, especially focusing on abstaining from alcohol, although many spectators at Saturday’s event had alcohol with them.
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Contact Celeste Ansley at [email protected]