Band Competition - The Big Day!!

If you've read the previous post then you'll have some idea how much effort has gone into the Band Competition. Not just by the officers and cadets, but also by Committee Members and parents in one way or another.

The big day had arrived, meeting at 0700 on a Sunday morning is not something that we do very often (thankfully), and I don't know about anyone else but I had been getting butterflies in the stomach since late Saturday afternoon, had a pretty rough night's sleep, and felt a bit naff as soon as I woke up in the morning!

one minor hiccup in the early morning preparation, illustrated beautifully by the conversation between the Commanding Officer and myself when we arrived at the meeting point:

Graham: "What's up?"
Me: "erm... we kinda forgot something...."
G: "Let me guess, your cap?"
M: "Nope, slightly bigger than that"
G: "Mark's snare drum?"
M: "Erm, not quite. bigger than that too"
G: "Dunno, I give up, what did you forget?"
M: "Celia, the Colour Officer!"

A vehicle was promptly dispatched to collect the poor Colour Officer, and we were on our way.

Anyway, once we had got changed into our uniforms (at which point, for some bizarre reason, the butterflies and nerves disappeared from me completely, presume my uniform is some sort of strange security blanket!) it was the big moment, marched out to the music of "The Longest Day" (strangely apt title, considering!), formed up in the arena, Graham reported to the Commodore, and then we were off.

I'll be honest, I can't remember a huge amount of what happened out there. I was vaguely aware of what sounded like the TS Sturdy Cheerleaders in the audience (it turns out it was a combination of the Committee Members and parents of our cadets, and the cadets from the other ships in our region cheering us on), but the main thing that stuck in my mind was how quiet it felt out in the arena. We've practiced in halls and gyms etc that have the 'echo effect' which actually helped us to understand the volume levels we were producing. We had nothing of that in the arena, due to the size of the place I guess, and it felt almost eerie. We just worked with the conditions to the best of our ability.

The marching routine went smoothly and looked great, the diamond formation in particular (see picture) looked better than we had achieved in any of the practice routines, the music sounded good, and we marched off with our heads held high (not to mention with a lot of inner tension easing off rapidly). We were on a high like I haven't felt for years, We had actually done it! Woohoo!

Not a lot of rest for the wicked, as they say, we had enough time to throw some food down our throats (not down our fronts, thankfully, as we were still in uniform), before cheering on our Colour Officer and Colour Escorts as they performed their routine out on the arena.

In many ways performing the Colour Routine is harder than performing in a band, because in the Colour Routine there are only three of you, there's nowhere to hide, every minor mistake is in full view of everyone, and you don't have the luxury of being able to concentrate on the music to block out anything that's happening in the audience. Large amounts of respect to Celia, our Colour Officer, and the two Colour Escorts, Luke and Emma (who incidentally really did have busy days, they were in our band too!).

Anyway, once all that was over it was time for the final muster and prize giving. All the bands marched onto the arena (was a bit of a squeeze, thankfully I had remembered the anti-persperant!), and the awards were read out.

Best Wind Section - TS Sturdy (woohoo!). Incidentally, this proved a theory that we've had for years - you do not need a huge brass section to win this. The other bands in our class had larger numbers of trumpeters, clarinet players etc, but our five members of the brass section played quite brilliant, well controlled music and took away the first prize. My personal congratulations to Graham, Chrissie, George, Michael and Joe for their outstanding achievement.

Best Bell Lyre Section - joint first between TS Sturdy and TS Unity (Cue heart attack from myself, as after seeing the age and experience of the opposition, I thought we'd miss out on this one. Up in the audience, a Mrs P Emery of Chichester, my mum, squealed!). I can't begin to describe how happy I felt for the bell lyre team (and myself, admittedly). It was a fantastic achievement considering we didn't have a bell lyre section at the beginning of this year. Jessica and Lyka have worked their socks off for this band competition, and deserved every award they got. I was incredibly proud of their achievements.

We were awarded third place in our class, a mere 11 points behind TS Unity, with TS Implacable taking away first place, in what was one of the most closely contested classes in years.

To say that the entire band were bouncing off the walls with excitement would be the understatement of the century.

A few items of note:

Many, many congratulations to our sister ship TS Intrepid, who were competing in the novice class after many changes in their band from last year. Not only did they walk away with seven of the 10 available awards, they were also crowned 2006 Novice Class Championship!! A fantastic result, and their best EVER Band Competition result. Well done!

A big thank you to all the officers, committee members and parents for their support in the lead up to, and during the day, of the Band Competition. As usual, we couldn't have done it without you!

And, ultimately, the final thank you must go to the cadets, who were truly brilliant, and a pleasure to work with.