OTTAWA IS REALLY starting to flex its musical muscles. Not only is the city attracting bigger and better musical acts, but we also have a great deal of local talent to enjoy. So, it comes as no surprise that Ottawa, for the second year in a row, is one of the three Canadian cities, including Toronto and Montreal, participating in Emergenza, the biggest battle of the bands competition in the world. Emergenza is an exciting musical competition in its fourteenth year, with bands participating from cities across North America and Europe. To begin the elimination process, several preliminary rounds are held in each participating city, from January to June, in order to determine the finalists from each region. Then, these winners are sent to Germany for four days in August to compete in the international finals, with the winning band of the whole contest earning a spot on the Vans Warped Tour for summer 2005 and a chance to be potentially scouted by Columbia and Sony Records. There are no auditions required to enter the contest, so essentially any 3-piece band without a recording contract is welcome to get up there and give it their best shot. The competition kicked off in Ottawa on January 2, with the first of 12 preliminary rounds taking place at The Rainbow Bistro. The final in Ottawa will take place on June, 10th. At this all-ages show, the bands displayed a wide variety of musical talent, ranging from young punk bands to more mature heavy metal rockers, but the one thing all these bands had in common was their enthusiastic and energetic live performances. Frank Valiente, Emergenza tour manager from Montreal, agrees that the young bands performing in the contest are very willing to learn and are excited about the opportunity to perform live. "All-ages nights are pretty cool and it''s interesting because they''re really into it, they''re motivated, and they want to learn everything they can about the music business," said Valiente. Chris Jones, drummer for the band Leave It Blank, who finished second in the preliminary round, explains how Emergenza is a great opportunity for bands to connect and learn from each other. "That''s the really cool thing about this show, you get to hear all different kinds of music. I like the atmosphere here and the venue. I''ve met up with a lot of people from the different bands, and I''m already making connections for upcoming shows, just tonight," explained Jones. Although most in attendance had positive things to say about the show''s events, not everyone was satisfied with the selection. However, one of the bands expressed their frustration with the voting system, which consists of a show of hands from the audience for their favourite bands. Phillip Lemmir, lead singer of Gunfighter Pedestrian, felt the system was unfair, since his band performed first in the evening, before many people had arrived or were really focusing on the music, thus affecting the number of votes his band received. "I feel that if we had a different spot in the night we could have influenced the crowd more and had their full attention. It''s the truth that people would have been drunk and rowdier and probably more open to hearing something different," Lemmir explained. However, after trying other voting systems, Valiente maintains that a showing of hands seems to work the best. "It''s the best way we''ve found. Paper systems are very complicated, where people vote for the three best bands...through a showing of hands, you can vote as many times as you want during the night, so while it helps for a band to have fans there, the purpose of the concert is to be the best live band, and that is what will make a band win in the end," said Valiente. Emergenza hopes to expand across the country in the coming years, so other Canadian cities can have the chance to display their up and coming musical talents, and hopefully, another Canadian rock star will be born.