The storm before the calm?

As those that read my posts here will know, this has been a rather strange performance season for my band kids. We have our first contest Saturday and have only performed 2 1/2 times. With that thought in mind, Bossman decided to have them play for a JV game. I think the fact that our star trombone player is also a starter on the JV team had something to do with it.

Anyway, so we had our normal Tuesday practice, although it was a bit intense due to the pressure of the week. ***side note- you should see some of the stuff the kids have been putting on facebook. they are excited and pumped up for the weekend, and ready to work and do what it takes to be the best!***

The weather was predicted to get bad at like 2, then it kept getting pushed back, until it was supposed to hold off until 9. Boy were they wrong, but I'll get to that in a minute.

So, we do the whole marching into the (empty) stadium. I think there may have been a total of 10 people that weren't band parents or had something to do with the football teams there. We play a couple tunes to pass the time. For some strange reason, the kids forgot that they aren't supposed to play unless they are told to. I'm going to pass that off as a fluke, though.

So, as we are waiting for kickoff, I look over in the not so distant sky and you can see the rain forming. As practice ended, you could see the big black cloud enveloping the area, but it seemed to have passed...or so we thought.

The kickoff never happened. Not sure, but we believe that they just don't kick in JV. Also, the scoreboard wasn't on, and no one was announcing. WTF?!?

Bossman sends the booster president to talk to one of the assistant coaches and find ot some info. We play some more. The this odd occurrence happens. Behind the stadium you can see a rainbow forming. Over in the not so distant sky, though, this big black cloud looked to be doing some weird twisting and turning...sort of like it was trying to become a tornado.

Before too long, the tornado siren goes off, and the game was stopped, just as they had finally gotten the scoreboard on! Apparently, there is a law that if that siren goes off, the field has to be cleared for at least 15 minutes. Bossman asked the coach if we could go on and get ot performance out of the way. We were told, "...if anything happens, it's on you." Not exactly the kind of thing you want to hear, right? So, Bossman makes the decision to send the kids back to the bandroom. No sooner had he said that than it started to downpour.

If you are familiar with anything in the band world, then you may or may not know that woodwinds (flute, clarinets, saxophones) cannot get wet. Actually, no instrument should get wet, but woodwinds go straight to hell in a handbasket when they get the tiniest drop of water on them. Now, although most of these instrument are the crappy school horns (new ones are coming in any day now), it still sucks. On top of that, the microphones and stuff got wet. I'm not sure if they are waterproof or not, bt I would imagine so.

While we are sitting in the bandroom waiting for it to clear or just call it a night. Bossman ponders out loud whether this was a bad omen for Saturday. Let's hope not!

Anyway, after a good 20-45 minutes, the storm cleared off and the game resumed. We walked back down to the stadium and waited for halftime. Yeah, I know you're probably wondering why didn't we just go home. Well, this is a run through that we had to get in, if for nothing else than to see a video of stuff that can be corrected. In other words, this performance and subsequent taping could be the difference between placing and not placing.

Finally, halftime rolls around and they get to perform. Did I mention that the drum major had been throwing up all day and actually missed most of school and had to sit out of practice. She sucked it for the 8 minutes on the field, though, but at the end, you can tell she was ready to call it a day...er, night.

The performance was actually the best that they've don. Of course, this is the first time they've done the entire show, but that's beside the point. Sure there were some issues, but they can be fixed. The biggest thing to be aware of, though, is how they deal with all the distractions of the day and were able to pull it off.

It reminds me of what happened in band camp. We were rehearsing and all of a sudden the power went out. They kept playing and at the end of the song, put their horns down and remained calm. Incredible, especially when you consider how most of these kids are 8th and 9th graders!

Needless to say, I don't think we'll be doing anymore JV games unless we absolutely have to. Except for the burgers we got from the coaches afterwards, it seems as if something was conspiring against us!