Irondale Marching Band Competition

After the football game on Friday night at Kingston we (the marching band) all went home to get ready for our big competition the next day. We were all really pumped because we were going against big time bands like Irondale and Rosemont in Minnesota. These communities take marching band very seriously and put a lot of work into their shows. We were all excited but nervous at the same time because we knew the competition would be very tough. On Saturday morning we had about a 2 hour practice at Kennedy to get ready. It went pretty well and afterwards I felt a lot more confident with our show. After that we went home for a while to pack because we were going to spend the night in the Irondale gym at the school we were performing at considering it is about a 5 hour drive back home. I came back after lunch and we boarded the buses for the long bus ride. The bus ride was fun as usual and didn’t seem too long. When we arrived at the competition we could tell just how true everything was that our band director had been telling us. We watched a couple bands perform and they were very good. We still didn’t know exactly what we were up against because we were watching the 2A schools and we were a 3A school at this competition. After we watched a few bands perform we went to go get our uniforms on and then warmed up. By this time I was pretty nervous, not only for myself but for the band as a whole. In the last movement, which we recently put on, it is really hard to stay with the drum line in some parts and I was worried we wouldn’t be able to stick with their tempo.

Finally we were on the field and ready to perform, there was no going back. We were the first in our class to perform because it was the first time we had ever been to this competition. Our show went pretty well and I was relieved when it was over. I felt that I had done the best I could. I was a little disappointed because one of the keys on my flute tends to stick sometimes and of course it was sticking during the performance so not all the notes came out as good as they should have. There were 6 bands in our class and we got 6th place. I know this sounds bad, but I was kind of expecting it just because we had been warned what we were going up against. It was a little comforting though, that the band that came in 5th place beat us by less than a point. We were all still proud of ourselves because we knew the bands we had competed against were the best of the best in the area. Some of the bands like Rosemont even compete and place nationally. The other thing is that they start their season 2 weeks ahead of us, so they are a bit farther along. Even though we got last place I think the competition really prepared us for the season. The bands around here are not much competition and so we will only go up in scoring from here on out (hopefully).

We spent the night in the gym and the next morning we got up and went to a buffet. It was nice to just relax and have fun with all my friends knowing the competition was over. After that we went to Mall Of America and went shopping before we headed home. We didn’t get home until about 7 o’clock pm which is why I am now rushing to finish this blog post as well as the rest of my homework.