93rd Annual Lions Convention Parade

Once again braving the intense cold, the band assembled at Hyde Park on Tuesday, ready for a day of marching and missing school.

The truck was somewhat delayed, which gave the State Music Camp time to arrive.

When the truck eventually arrived, and with it the large instruments, there was a frenzy of unpacking, setting up, repacking and cape pinning; at the end of which we were all ready to start marching.

As it turned out, we still had a while to wait, so the boosters went around distributing red frogs to keep us perky. During this time, some last minute memorisation took place, along with warming up instruments.

Soon we moved onto a grassy area where other bands were also assembled, and it was there that we formed up a parade block. Due to absences, both Drumline and the Sousaphones were condensed in order to fill in the empty spaces.

Whilst waiting for our turn, Hunter School of Performing Arts, standing next to us, decided to run through one of their pieces - 'I Want You Back', played at a much faster clip than us.

Eventually, we were slotted into the parade, and avoiding the somewhat unexpected piles of horse dung, we marched off, playing a continual loop of 'I Want You Back' and 'Respect' interspersed with drum cadences.

It was during perhaps the fourth or fifth cadence that David Keevers managed to completely snap one of his sticks, much to the amazement of some and amusement of others.

The parade was somewhat stop-start due to the judging, but overall, the first pass went well.

At the end of the pass, we were taken back to Hyde Park by bus, with half the band sharing a bus with a pipe band, and the rest of the band getting on an asthmatic old bus on loan from the Sydney Bus and Rail museum. Getting the Sousas, as well as the Tenor and Bass drums onto the bus was less of a challenge than expected, and we were soon back at the assembly area for our second pass.

As we waited, the boosters provided food and water to keep us going for the second pass, for which we thank them.

On our second pass, again avoiding the horse dung, we played 'I Am Australian' and 'For Crown and Country', and no sticks were broken. At one of our stints marking time as we waited for the parade to start moving again, a woman with a proffessional looking camera started filming first Tom McCracken's hands as he played the cadence, and then his feet. Apparently, feet marking time makes for interesting viewing.

The second pass finished and we walked to the truck, where a frenzy of unpacking, repacking, removing of capes, and hurried leaving of State Music Camp people took place. Following the conclusion of that, we were dismissed by Lindsay to go about on our merry ways.

The parade was a great success, and the crowd (or at least the Cumberland High School contingent) seemed to like us.

Until next time, play loud and proud.