The Bayfront Convention Center hosted the annual Rock Erie Music Awards Sunday. Artists performed on three different stages – the ballroom, lobby and the outside acoustic stage.
With the new setup and the reorganization of the show, REMA ’14 began.
The band Jake’s Blue opened the show up with several songs to get the crowd going. Between each set of awards, a different group or artist preformed.
The recognized artists have been working long and hard all year. Each person nominated deserved the recognition that they received.
According to the voting process, the artists nominate themselves for the first round of voting in the categories that they feel they excel in first. After sending in some samples, they are listed on the REMA website. Relying completely on friends, family and fans – voting began.
For each category, only the top three, excluding song and album of the year, which has four finalists – continue on to the final round.
The final round of voting consists of two parts; the fan vote and the judge’s vote. Forty percent of the final decision is based upon the fans. Once again friends, family and fans had to go back online and vote for a second time. The other 60 percent comes from the judges’ vote.
According to the popular vote, “The Groove” seems to be taking over the scene.
As a live, cover band winning in over four categories, they remained humble while accepting their awards.
Nick Kiddo, a sophomore business administration major, went to support his friend, Zach Knight. Knight was in the running for “acoustic artist” of the year.
“Zach is a very determined artist and loves what he does wholeheartily,” Kiddo said.
“I personally never met someone so talented not only vocally but with instruments in general. I always tell all my friends to check him out!”
REMA supports the local music scene and encourages artists to pursue their dreams.
Each year the award show becomes bigger and better by recognizing more people.
Erie, unlike many of the larger cities, has a very supportive music scene. The bands and artists all support each other. It doesn’t matter what the type of music, they all still come out to support each other. They are part of a community.
“The award show was full of great artists,” Kiddo said. “I was happy to be able to experience such great performances and check out the [music] scene that Erie has to offer.”
KAT SHINDLEDECKER
