Band Competition Weekend

Adler’s band was in a regional Bands of America competition last Saturday in Johnson City, Tennessee. Jamie said she would go but it’s a 10 hour drive from her house (the red pin) to Johnson City (the grey with white dot). I saw that our location at Cathedral Caverns State Park (the green tree dot) was about halfway there. So I told her if she could get anywhere near us I would drive from there. She got plane tickets to Chattanooga, I extended our stay at the park by one day so we didn’t have to leave until today, Monday, and off we went.

The competition was held in the indoor football field of East Tennessee State University; the Ballad Health Athletic Center you can see just past Jamie.

It’s a beautiful campus and Johnson City is set in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, very nice. Fortunately they were just north of the devastation from Hurricane Helene.

The whole thing is a very complicated production. There were 22 bands that participated and they filled up several parking lots with their buses and gear.

Schools have a variety of transportation equipment.

Lake Hamilton just got a brand new semi tractor…

with a trailer designed for band equipment. They don’t have a logo on the trailer yet.

For a trip this long they use commercial buses for the kids, for closer competitions they ride school buses.

We found the kids hanging out having lunch outside on the campus. That’s Jamie walking across on the right, the only picture I got of her face.

They practice outside on the fields. Each school is assigned a parking area and a practice area.

Then they have to bring all their instruments, equipment and props across to the field. If they are one of the 12 schools that make finals they do this all over again in the evening.

While the preliminary scores were being compiled the East Tennessee State University Marching Band put on an exhibition of their show “Happy Together” which included this version of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. You can see the high school bands in the seats behind them where they go after they perform and haul all their equipment back out.

As an encore the ETSU Band turned around and performed for the high school bands. I thought that was a wonderful gesture. They also announced they gave band scholarships and invited seniors to come and talk to them. Pretty good marketing.

Lake Hamilton made finals. Here they are gathered while Mr Schultz, their band director, gives them a pep talk before finals. They made some major marching errors in preliminaries and he is making sure that doesn’t happen in finals.

This is Lake Hamilton getting ready to go on for their final performance. During the performance of the band that precedes them they file into the end zone with all their equipment. The man in light colored pants is a timer. The last band is now carrying and pushing all of their stuff off the field. When the timer indicates, the other band is to have cleared the field and Lake Hamilton gets about 2 or 3 minutes to get all their stuff out and in place, including amplifiers, ladders for the drum majors and all their props.

And then they perform. These bands are pretty amazing considering the members are from 14 to 18 years old. Towards the end of this clip you can see Adler as I zoom in on his group of saxophone players. He’s the tall one in the middle. The whole thing from set up to tear down fits in a 15 minute time slot.

Then it’s back out to the parking lots to wait. We found Adler with his new bandana. The kids all got them for making finals.

He and his laffy taffy posed for me…

and then he gave me something between his performance smile and his regular smile.

Jamie and I went out for a quick supper and came back to find the kids all lined up to go back in for final awards. We were in time to see the lone class 1A school put on an exhibition. They did not make finals, but did win their class, so got to perform again. There were only 30 kids total, only 13 that marched and they were very, very good. But a band of 30 can’t compete with a band of 300.

The bands marched in to the cadence of the ETSU drum line. Lake Hamilton is the group with their color guards all sitting with skirts flared around them.

The group on the end is that 30 person band.

And here are all twelve of the finalists. Lake Hamilton did do better. They got ninth place and beat the school that won third place in their class (2A) in preliminaries. But in finals all the classes compete together, and there are also 3A and 4A schools.

Here I am at the end of a long day with my grandson, who is eating laffy taffy again! He said he was happy with their placement, but not with the score.

Jamie and I got to our hotel at 11:00 PM. The kids went back to the camp where they were staying. Sunday I drove Jamie back to the Chattanooga airport and then I drove the ninety miles back to Cathedral Caverns State Park. I was home at about 4 PM. Jamie flew to Little Rock and then drove home to Hot Springs. She got home at 12:30 AM. Adler went to Dollywood with the band and rode the bus all night. He got home at 5 AM Monday morning, at which time Jamie had to get up and drive to school to pick him up. It was a tiring weekend for all of us, but very much worth it.