Winner emerges after Bitter Jester’s battle of the bands caps a 55-show month

Eight showcases, 11 guest artists and more than 24 concert acts later, Highland Park’s Bitter Jester Music Festival concluded on Saturday, June 28, with a grand finale performance that pitted the two finalists against each other song for song in the city’s 19th annual battle of the bands. 

Platinum Moon, a self-described “energetic modern rock band” from New York, took home the $2,000 top prize with a 6-3 vote from judges after exhibiting a yet unreleased single in the showdown with runnerup Charlieboy, an indie-rock group from Wisconsin.

“You know, it’s always nice to know that something that you believe so much in was something that other people believe in too,” said Ava Anduze, the lead singer of Platinum Moon.  

“It gives you the confidence boost you need because the music industry is always scary. You never know if you’re making the right move,” she said. “But it definitely helps to know that other people enjoyed it as well, especially enough to win a competition.”

The festival staged 55 free performances in the North Shore over a month, but its real behind-the-scenes value comes from drawing young artists together and offering them a live-venue to practice and compete in front of new audiences, Bitter Jester founder Nicolas DeGrazia said. 

DeGrazia, a seven-time Emmy Award-winning writer and producer, first approached Highland Park in 2006 with a proposal to create a comedy festival before the then-city manager suggested a battle of the bands instead. 

The series has since then featured between 1,500 and 2,000 acts with a focus on young musicians: half of all band members must be under 22 years old and no artist can be older than 24. 

After garnering more than 100 applications to participate in the festival this year, Bitter Jester judges selected 43 performers (bands or solo artists) to take stage. Each performed a preliminary concert before four winners and four “wild-card” picks went head-to-head again on Saturday in Highland Park. 

Anduze said Platinum Moon’s goal is to play for anybody and everybody, so the band has performed in numerous competitions since they formed around 2019.

What set Bitter Jester apart from others, she said, was that the winners weren’t selected by an audience-driven popularity contest but from a panel of professional musicians who gave detailed feedback on how to improve. 

Platinum Moon was advised to watch their tempo, consider a different register for their keyboard and check Anduze’s breath control — all notes the vocalist said the group applied to their final showcase and enhanced their performance.

Charlieboy competed in the Bitter Jester grand finale last year, but Owen Jackson, the band’s drummer, said they almost didn’t apply again due to the $50 entrance fee. Each of the group’s four members work full-time jobs in central Wisconsin and already take time off to tour and obtain studio time. 

By DeGrazia’s urging, they applied again. Jackson said the group entered the series with the sense they had already established themselves and stood a good chance; however, as they attended the other concerts, the drummer got more and more nervous seeing the tough competition.

“At Bitter Jester, the final, every single band and musician that played there was high level and very talented, and that’s part of the reason that it made everybody so anxious,” Jackson said. “As we watched them all perform, we realized that literally anybody has a chance.”

More than music

DeGrazia recalled one of his favorite moments on Saturday was seeing Anduze and Kaya Martin, the lead singer for Charlieboy, hug each other on stage after judges named Platinum Moon the contest’s winner.  

Besides awarding top bands — the group Exit 122 earned a third-place honorable mention — with cash prizes, music equipment and recording studio packages, DeGrazia reiterated the goal of Bitter Jester is to foster a community for young musicians to bond and support each other. 

Meeting other young musicians and networking was Jackson’s favorite part of the festival experience, he said, especially as Charlieboy gained future gig offers and he was recognized as the contest’s Drummer of the Year, all while being entirely self taught. 

“I hung out with some people during the day that weren’t my band, and it kind of felt like I knew them forever,” Jackson said. 

“As a musician, for me, [music] is one of my biggest passions and things that I put time into,” he continued. “I feel like you don’t really meet a lot of people who are as into things as you are, unless you’re put in a situation that’s specifically curated.” 

Peter Sagal, host of National Public Radio’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me! game show, moved to Highland Park in 2022 and became involved with Bitter Jester once DeGrazia asked if he would co-emcee the festival’s grand finale. 

After attending a preliminary concert last year and witnessing the devotion of the event’s judges, volunteers and musicians, Sagal said he was surprised more people didn’t know about the series. He knew then he had to lend his local notoriety to help draw it more of a following.

During the finale, he interviewed members of the finalists between sets to involve the audience and learn more about how the bands formed, found their inspiration and agreed on an aesthetic — reveal the humanity behind what listeners may otherwise just access as song files on Spotify. 

Sagal isn’t a musician, but he was a playwright before he started hosting a public radio show. 

He emphasized the importance of festivals like Bitter Jester for aspiring young artists because they offer the opportunity to be treated seriously.

Even just having your name on a poster or festival T-shirt can provide the encouragement needed in an often difficult creative landscape. 

“Any artist you talk to, they’ll tell you — of any variety — they’ll tell you about somebody or somebodies who met them and believed in them and said, ‘Yeah, you’re good at this. You have talent, you have a voice. You should be doing this,’” Sagal said. 

“There’s no guarantee that any of these bands or musicians are going to go on to be famous or rich, which I guess is the status of success these days,” Sagal said. “But I can tell you that nobody who is famous and rich got there without somebody very early on looking at them and saying, ‘Yes, you are worth the attention and you should be doing this.’”

What’s next

Moving forward, Bitter Jester will feature a “Best Of” concert on Sept. 1 at Navy Pier in Chicago where a yet unnamed lineup of this year’s acts will perform. 

Pandemic restrictions diminished the festival in 2020, so DeGrazia said he hopes Bitter Jester’s official 20th anniversary next year will be special with former competitors filling in as all the judges and previous first-place winners filling in as all the grand finale judges — a scheduling challenge as many are now professional musicians on tour.

Sagal intends to return next year as co-emcee and continue spreading awareness of a festival, an event of “tremendous credit” to the people of Highland Park who operate it, he said, and one the music community of the greater Chicago area ought to embrace.

“I hope next year is the first year, in 20 years, where people finally figure out this thing is going on and come out en masse,” Sagal said. “That would be my dream.”

The Record is a nonprofit, nonpartisan community newsroom that relies on reader support to fuel its independent local journalism.

Become a member of The Record to fund responsible news coverage for your community.

Already a member? You can make a tax-deductible donation at any time.