Battles

This page contains a compilation of links that will lead you to our thrilling “Battles”. It all started with the Battle of the Bands on Felixstowe Radio, after Hammy and I (Verso) had a conversation at an OMD concert. We became intrigued by the question of which bands come from which regions, and which region can boast the best bands. In the spirit of friendly competition, we devised a plan. We divided the United Kingdom into 16 regions and carefully selected nine bands from each region to participate in this showdown. Every week, these regions compete in a 9 vs 9 battle, with listeners and members of Verso’s social media pages voting for their favourites. Once the UK Bands battle concludes, we will move on to International bands, followed by UK solo artists. And there are many more exciting “Battles” planned for the future.

Verso put together the regions and attributed some bands to the regions. Hammy then tweaked accordingly and added the songs (ably assisted by his wife and daughters) and worked out the seedings. Whilst the regions and bands selected are not definitive we have tried to capture all of the UK and get a cross section of decades and genres.

How did we work out who was playing who? Alphabetically but dropping THE out of any bands. So alphabetically “The Beatles” would be just “Beatles”.  Polls were/are created on both Verso Media – Broadcasting, Quizzes and Blogs | Facebook and Verso Media (@Verso_Media) / X (twitter.com)

The bands and their seedings are:-

1. Manchester
2. Merseyside
3. Sheffield
4. London
5. Ireland (including Southern Ireland)
6. Birmingham
7. Scotland
8. Bristol and Avon
9. The South (Kent, Oxford, Sussex, Hants, Dorset, Devon & Cornwall)
10. Wales
11. The Rest (Chesire, Staffs, Shrops, Worcs, Hereford, Gloucester and Wilts)
12. East Anglia
13. The East (Cambs, Lincoln, Yorks and Humberside)
14. North East
15. Home Counties
16. Midlands

See the results

• Final – London v Scotland
• SF2 – The Rest v Scotland
• SF1 – Manchester v London
• QF4 – Scotland v Merseyside
• QF3 – Mixed v Sheffield
• QF2 – Ireland v London
• QF1 – Manchester v The South
• R1 (8) – Birmingham v The Rest (Mixed)
• R1 (7) – London v The East
• R1 (6) – Sheffield v North East
• R1 (5) – Ireland v East Anglia
• R1 (4) – Scotland v Wales
• R1 (3) – Bristol & Avon v The South
• R1 (2) – Merseyside v Home Counties
• R1 (1) – Manchester v The Midlands