Jared Ritz
Havre Daily News
jritz@havredailynews.com
A former Havreite's band is in a competition to play with the popular Dave Matthews Band at a concert on Aug. 16.
Pete Soyer, a 1998 graduate of Havre High School, is the keyboardist for the California Bay Area rock band Broken October. The four-piece band responded in early July to Sacramento area radio station KWOD's call for local musicians to send in their music for a chance to perform in the opening slot at the DMB show.
After sifting through hundreds of submitted MP3s, the station picked Broken October to be one of the 10 finalists, Soyer said. Now the competition comes down to who can get the most votes on the station's Web site, www.KWOD.com, before voting ends at noon next Friday.
Just being allowed to enter the contest was a trial for the band, Soyer said. He didn't hear about it until the final day of registration, so he had to scramble to get the required song and photo to the right people in time. After receiving the MP3, people at KWOD told him they liked what they'd heard, but weren't going to allow the ban into the contest because technically it wasn't a local band - the Bay Area is more than 80 miles away.
The radio station relented when band members explained that they often perform in Sacramento.
Since learning that they made the top 10 on July 26, the members have been busy sending out a call-to-arms to the band's faithful - and anyone else with a known e-mail address.
"We've been e-mailing and trying to get everyone we've ever known to vote for us," he said.
To vote, people can visit the station's Web site, sign on as a member (which requires a working e-mail address), wait for the registration e-mail and vote.
The band's music sounds very different than that of standard DMB disciples, but that didn't stand in the way of the members jumping at the chance to play in front of 18,500 people at the Sleep Train Amphitheatre near Sacramento, Soyer said.
"We're going to meet on Friday and practice," he said, "and then work out a game plan strategy to get more votes."
