Saturday, October 13, 2007

Halfway Through Marching Band Season

The Marching Cougars of Oakton High School are a little more than halfway through their season. As much as I enjoy the band, I must confess that I will be ready when the season winds down to its finish. I look forward to having my weekends free again.

You may recall that the theme of last year's show was baseball. The backdrop (designed, constructed and painted by band parents) looked like this:



This year's theme is Arabian Nights. Take last year's scoreboard, give it a radical makeover (again, courtesy of band parents), and you get this:



This palace, patterned after the Taj Mahal (that most Arabian of structures, LOL!) is complemented by four tents, two on each side. Parents haul the palace and the tents onto and off of the field for every show. Additionally, each tent must be supported by a parent hidden inside. Well, the supporters are hidden as long as the wind isn't blowing. When the wind blows, the poor supporters are exposed for all the spectators to see. (OT: I hid inside one of the tents to take photos of the show last week and managed not to step on the supporter's toes once. That's a pretty significant accomplishment, because there wasn't much room inside for two people.)

It takes 28 parents to haul the palace, tents and pit percussion at competitions and football games. That's a pretty big supporting cast for a group of 172 marchers. When we travel, we need four buses, plus several trucks and tow vehicles to haul all of our equipment. Next year, I won't have to do anything except sit comfortably in the bleachers and watch the show. I'm looking forward to that.

1 comment:

Dave said...

Last year, the score on the scoreboard would change as the show progressed. In the show neared the end, in the bottom of the 9th fireworks went off as the home team scores the winning run.

This year fireworks again shout out from the Taj as the show comes to is conclusion. Next week at the Oakton Classic I am going to try to get a few pics of the fireworks shooting out.