Omega Swan, Creature Comfort, The Bumbs, & Forest Fire Gospel Choir Compete in FREE Road to Roo Finals | TONIGHT @ The Basement East

After last week’s second Road to Roo 2017 semifinal round, the bracket-style battle of the bands competition inches closer to a close with the City Finals tonight, March 28 at The Basement East. Whittled down from an initial 16 competitors, just four bands remain, after two preliminary and two semifinal rounds, and those four will play longer sets tonight, with one being voted the Nashville winner, then moving on next week the the State Finals, where one band from either Nashville or Memphis will earn a slot at Bonnaroo.

Tonight will feature Omega Swan, Creature Comfort, The Bumbs, Forest Fire Gospel Choir competing at the totally free, 21+ event, which begins at 7 p.m. (though you must be present before 9 p.m. in order to have a chance to cast your vote). You can read more about the contest below, and preview tonight’s lineup after the jump.

Spread out across town, the Road to Roo, different from the single-location “Road to Bonnaroo” that took place at Mercy Lounge until 2015, is more of a bracket-style series, and results in one single, state-wide winner, selected over the course of several weeks. For a refresher, here’s a detailed rundown: Both March 1 and March 8, eight locals bands were selected to compete in random order, playing short preliminary round sets for an audience who then vote to select four from each show (or eight total) to advance to the semifinals. The semifinals were March 14 at The Basement East and March 23 at 3rd & Lindsley, and four bands from each preliminary round competed, performing slightly longer sets, in random order. Two bands from each semifinal round, so four total, were be selected by vote to advance to the City Finals, held at The Basement East on March 28. In the City Finals, the four bands will be given an even longer set time, and one winner will be selected. Surely that’s the end, right? Nope! One final final round, the Tennessee State Finals, will take place April 5 at Acme Feed & Seed, where Nashville’s winner will compete against a winner from Memphis (who, presumably, had to battle their way though a similar process), and one of those two acts will be crowned supreme victor, finally awarded a spot at Bonnaroo 2017.

OMEGA SWAN

CREATURE COMFORT

THE BUMBS

FOREST FIRE GOSPEL CHOIR

The Road to Roo’s City Final round will take place tonight, March 28 at The Basement East. The show is 21+, begins at 7 p.m. (voting ends at 9 p.m.), and it’s FREE.