The Smokefree Rockquest Regional heats were held at the Taieri College Performing Arts Centre on Saturday the 20th of May and King’s was ably represented by four bands.

The four band’s and line ups are as follows:

Afterthought

• Ethan Kuriger (Vocals/Guitar)
• Riley Cooper (Lead Guitar)
• Dylan Turnock (Bass)
• Nikos Stamou (Drums)

Cheese Sandwich

• Amos Bethel (Guitar)
• Logan Scarf-Miller (Guitar)
• Edward Wassell (Bass)
• Ethan Shaw-Wood (Drums)

Toadstool

• Stefan Keller (Vocals/Bass)
• Jack Ingram (Drums)

Roadkill

• Nikhil Rawat (Vocals/Bass)
• Aidan Blair (Guitar/Vocals)
• Luca Macnee (Lead Guitar)
• Blake Hughes (Drums)

Afterthought were first on the day and they grabbed the audiences attention with their unified look and their powerful and catchy song. The band of Year 11 students showed a lot of potential for future performances and the work they had put into practicing in the weeks leading up to the performance was clear.

Cheese Sandwich brought a slick performance to the stage and had everyone in the audience bopping along to their instrumental tune 'Cherry Tomato'. The guitarists traded solos while the rhythm section held it all together. Another band to watch for in future.

Toadstool is an experimental duo with incredibly clever use of bass and electronics filling the space left by not having a guitar. The duo were unfortunately dogged by technical hiccups, but they played through in a very professional manner and the rest of their performance highlighted how promising this young band could be. Expect to see them performing full length sets around town in the near future.

Roadkill took to the stage and had the proud pleasure of being the loudest band of the day. They had incredible amounts of energy and stage presence and blew the audience away with the opening riff of their song. The judges were impressed by their tight performance and their high energy sound. Each member shone at different times during the performance but the sum was greater than its parts, the cohesive sound of the band was a highlight of the event.

After judging concluded, Roadkill was announced to be progressing through to the Smokefree Rockquest Regional Final at the Mayfair Theatre on June 16th at 7pm. We would love to see as many King’s men there as possible to cheer on (and be blown away by) Roadkill.