Five Crown did not add a sixth vestige of power to its namesake when it won this year’s Battle of the Bands, but it certainly deserved to do so.
Guardian
For this foursome of local musical talent, victory last week in the A.S. programming office contest was a major coup d’etat. Not even an original finalist, the band was invited at the last minute to perform in the finals at the Price Center after one of the original finalists backed out.
The underdog band then managed to swoon, rock and mellow-out the audience and the judges enough to steal the contest’s prime prize: the right to open the huge-by-UCSD-standards Sun God concert.
Four years and two full-length albums after its initial formation, the band is now poised to play one of the most important shows in its mid-length existence. The only UCSD student in the band, drummer and Thurgood Marshall College junior Trace Smith, is ecstatic about the opportunity to play for his fellow UCSD students.
“”This will be probably our biggest show [so far] in terms of number of people,”” said Smith, a recently married electrical engineering major who divides his time between school, family and the band.
Smith describes Fivecrown’s sound as “”dated … but in a good way.””
Although he believes that his band is too “”eclectic”” to be captured in genre-defining adjectives, he does his best to satisfy journalists by saying that his band embodies the “”rhythmic and melodic qualities”” of rock bands in the mid-’90s.
The band’s Web site is less timid. It proclaims that the band, led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Christopher Hoffee and backed by bassist Keith Jones,drum stylings of Smith and recently added guitarist Steve DeLorenzo features a sound that is a mixture of “”rock, smart power-pop and a moodiness.””
Regardless of lengthy adjectives and minute genres, early Sun God concertgoers will rock out to a band whose energized musical performance enabled it to come out of nowhere to establish itself as the best currently UCSD-affiliated band.
