Yesterday was Carrollton Band Day, which marked our first competition of the year. We had to be up at the school at 5:40 in the morning. All of the freshmen were grumbling and generally very unhappy, but the juniors and seniors that have been in band for 4 years are used to it and were excited for our first competition. (The juniors have been in the marching band as long as the seniors have because when we were freshmen, Mr. MacDannald wanted a bigger band, so he made the 8th graders march with us.)

Good grief, so much stuff happened yesterday, I donapos;t even know where to begin... Well, the 7th and 8th grade band went with us to compete. They donapos;t have their own halftime show, they just marched in the parade. That was the first event of the day, and the high schoolers all went up to watch the parade and support the middle schoolers. After they got done, we had about half an hour to get in uniform and head down to the practice field. We practiced, fixed what we could in that small amount of time, then headed to the performance field for competition.

We did okay. We definitely still have a lot of work to do and a lot of things to fix before we can be any real competition. Anyway, the geniuses in charge of scheduling decided to put us in parade practically the second we were done with our halftime show. The parade route was... At the very least (there was no way it could have been less than) a mile away from the field. So we had to move very fast. And Carrollton seems to have some sort of magical spell cast on it to make the ENTIRE TOWN, NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE going completely uphill. Then Mr. West made us run because we were running late as it was and we still had a long way to walk. I thought I was going to die. Or pass out. Or puke. Or all of the above. It was bad.

But we somehow made it through the parade and headed back to the bus for lunch. After lunch we went over and watched other bands compete. Itapos;s ridiculous how amazing some of these bands are. You really have no idea unless youapos;ve seen them for yourself.

Favorite performances:
One band, I donapos;t remember which one it was, did a video game theme. They played music from Halo, Kingdom Hearts, and Civilization. When I heard them playing Simple and Clean from Kingdom Hearts, I was very excited. But that actually wasnapos;t the coolest thing in their show. Halfway through the Civilization theme, the entire band started singing. It was a marching choir. And it was cool.

Another nameless band played music from Cirque du Soleil (which I adore) and at one point, they all started dancing. The color guard had a really awesome routine as well.

Oak Grove: (their band director is actually a good friend of Mr. West, and he came down over the summer during band camp as our drumline instructor.) They had a salute to rock theme. They played "Back in Black" and "Frankenstine." I canapos;t remember what their third song was, but they did a spectacular job, and took the grand prize in their class.

Smithcotton: Performed a Danny Elfman show. Enough said.

Liberty: By far the best, most amazing, completely mind blowing show Iapos;ve ever seen. They did a Wizard of Oz show, and OHMYGOD it was good Just... Wow. I canapos;t even imagine how many hours of backbreaking labor must have gone into this show. The colorguard made a rainbow that took up the length of the entire football field. The colorguard also had a very large black cloth that covered up the entire band. And this was class 6-A band, which is as big as it gets. And they hid the whole band under this cover. The drum majors were Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow, and one of the members in the pit was the Tin Man. They also had a witch that was running around throughout the whole show. The colorguard had yellow flags that they made into a long line as the band played "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and people that had microphones in the band kept saying "Follow the yellow brick road" in their best munchkin voices. One person was carrying a large cardboard house on a pole and had it hovering over the witch at one point. Speaking of the witch, she had a microphone as well, and we all got to hear her shriek "Iapos;ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too -cackle-" Then, as the show was about to come to an end, the colorguard made a giant circle around the witch, then closed in on her and there was just a giant colorguard dog pile on top of the witch as she screamed "Iapos;m melting, Iapos;m melting Oh what a world" Then the colorguard spread back out again and the witch was gone. All that remained was a pile of her clothes in the middle of the field. The band played its final few notes and Dorothy turned around to face the audience. She clicked her heels, told the audience there was no place like home, the band played one short final note, and it was over.

Standing ovation. Audience foaming at the mouth. Grand prize in the 6-A class. Best. Show. Ever. I really hope we see them again.

Anyway. How did Holden do? Well, there were 11 bands in our class in the parade compitition, and 12 in field. We got 6th in parade and 7th in field. That may not sound like we did that great, but keep in mind how amazing a lot of these bands are. Also know that, since Iapos;ve been in marching band, weapos;ve come in dead last at every competition weapos;ve ever been to. And this year we werenapos;t. In his first year of teaching band at Holden, Mr. West has taken us from dead last to almost placing (they gave trophies to the top 5 bands in our class). So while weapos;re still not completely awesome, we donapos;t completely suck this year. Weapos;re better than 5 other bands. Which feels so good.

Oh, and one last thing that we all thought was hilarious: Marshall (Mr. Macdannaldapos;s band) got last place. Lolz.
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