Witches Window shatters ‘Porcelain Jumpsuit’ to ‘High Flattery’ at Battle of the Bands

Liv Pierog

She/They

Staff Writer

4/15/24

If you were on campus Saturday night, you most likely heard loud riffs of pure hot metal coming out from in front of the HUB as High Flattery, Porcelain Jumpsuit, and Witches Window dueled for a spot on the Spring Fling bill, opening for Lil Skies.

PACS put on Battle of the Bands Saturday evening in front of the HUB on Alumni Green. Featuring three bands, the event ran from 7:30 pm to exactly 9 pm. PACS was handing out free t-shirts when I got there for soundcheck around 7, I grabbed one and made short work of cutting the neck, sleeves, and bottom hem off. Kudos to the graphic designer on this one, the Battle of the Bands shirts were such a hit, that they were all out of them by the second act. 

The first performance was by a band I’d never heard of, “Porcelain Jumpsuit.” Consisting of two guitars, a bassist, and drums, they played a fun set including some original songs and covers.

 I clock them as a pretty typical rock band. They could easily play Spring Fling or another PSU event in the future. 

At this point, it WAS raining on our show and there was a bit of confusion between the bands, the sound guys, and PACS about whether they were expected to play 3 songs or for 30 minutes, a pretty wide margin. 

As it happens, the bands were to play a 30-minute set each. Porcelain Jumpsuit continued the last half of their set with a recent original, “Swim The Well.” I love originals. I love seeing songs performed by the teens/twenty-somethings that wrote them, you don’t get to see that every day for real. 

Porcelain Jumpsuit dropped their first EP, “Think Before Speaking” on all streaming services in January. 

I rate the band’s personal style a 6/10, sorry for the low score boys it’s only one woman’s opinion. Their set I rate an 8/10. Highlights included covers like “Pool House” by the Backseat Lovers, and “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis.

The second act of the night was four-piece, Witches Window. They drew in the crowd tremendously, the band had good style (7/10, not in the fashionable kind of way, but in the way that tells you someone plays music good) Important to note, the vocalist performed with a water bottle in both back pockets of his jeans r/Metal. 

WItches Window opened with an original “I hate myself and it’s all your fault” bringing listeners right up to the stage at the beginning of their set. I had to back away from the speakers because I quite literally almost burst an eardrum. They closed their set with covers of Nirvana, Green Day, and Pixies.

High Flattery, a three-piece guitar, bass & drums hardcore/post-hardcore act closed out the event with their set of original songs. I’m familiar with High Flattery and was, truthfully, expecting them to sweep. They played an exciting set of original songs, expected to drop on streaming services this semester. Most of the vocals were led by guitarist Hayden Repeta, but bassist Adam Watson led vocals for a super sick last song of the night.

Witches Window was announced the winner, and everyone started packing up equipment out of the rain. “This really is like, the craziest thing that’s ever happened for us”, vocalist Brendan O’Neil explained after the show. There was tons of excitement after the event, for the winners but also just for the overall great show of musical strength from PSU.

You can still buy tickets to Spring Fling online and from PACS while they table in The HUB.