To start with, I’d like to acknowledge the assistance I received from Keevers, Julian and Bob (Liam the trumpeter) while I was writing this post in the car on the way home. Thanks, boys.
Today it rained. Lots. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.
And then it rained some more.
Fun Fact the first: rush hour trains going from Hurstville to the city are inordinately packed.
Related Fun Fact technically the second: When one is planning to catch a train of the aforementioned nature, it’s generally a good idea not to do that with a sousaphone.
But moving on.
Getting off the packed train at Redfern, the heavens proceeded to open with their righteous deluge of aqueous fluid, drawn by a gravitation attraction to the dense magnetic ooze in the middle of the earth.
Arriving rather sodden with the exception of my feet (moral of the story: wear gumboots to marching band. It’s mad cool), the equally sodden remainder of the band were assembled, waiting for a lessening of the downpour so that we could get ourselves to the Sound Lounge (because we warranted an entire jazz theatre as our holding area. That’s right, “dancers” [I’ll explain that later], we are that much cooler than you.) without gaining an extra kilogram or so of body mass in the form of the aforementioned solution of aqueous fluid.
We then embarked on a journey through the bowels of the Seymour centre to find the drums and sousas which the stage crew were meant to have taken to the sound lounge, at which point we set up our instruments and were released into sectionals to go over any last minute issues and to teach the newcomers the drill and choreography in all its multiplicity. This saw the appearance of Bob lacking much of his hair. It also saw the appearance of Jake, who had sparkles on his face, rather like the “dancers” (but I’ll elaborate on that later too). That’s right, I still haven’t gotten over the whole lip piercing thing.
After a somewhat delayed dress rehearsal (just because we run on schedule doesn’t mean the rest of The Arts Unit does), we returned to the sound lounge for some silent practicing, and for Scott to start watching the trombones for horn angles. Fun times for them. Eventually we made our ways to our respective stage doors to get ready for the matinee performance.
The primary school kids were beyond enthusiastic, whereas the high school kids in the audience generally had their fingers in their ears. I suppose the fact that the sound of a marching band is designed to be consumed from several metres away in windy conditions does mean that when consumed from about 50 centimetres away in an enclosed space it’s somewhat loud, but still. A little intense loudness never hurt anyone. Look at the drumline...
Upon returning to the Sound Lounge, we were greeted with the news that the August rehearsal had been changed to accommodate a performance at the AFL - a 20 minute show at the 3rd final at Stadium Australia: the first time since the olympics that the marching band will be performing there. The fact that we've been given 20 minutes of performance time at what is apparently the 3rd last game of the season (I don't really follow AFL) gives me the impression that they probably would have given us the grand final if not for the fact that it isn't in Sydney (I know enough about AFL to work that one out). EXCITEMENT.
Following that, we changed into our rather snazzy blues and assembled to go to Broadway for some free time [in groups of four or more]. On the way there, the uni students all looked upon the spectacle of 80 or so school students in matching uniforms walking in a regimented fashion (rather unlike the ragtag mess of the “dancers” and the drama kids). Upon arriving at our meeting point inside the shopping centre we were released in our groups [of four or more].
A reasonably sized contingent of the band went off to watch The Hangover, with the remainder merely floating about the centre making violently acerbic comments about the dancers. No, sorry, “dancers”.
So now I’ll actually get around to explaining that. As anyone who bothered to read the back of their jackets would realise, the jackets of the “dancers” have the arts unit logo and the word “Dance”. Not just the word dance, but the word in inverted commas. This led us to wonder what the purpose of the commas was. Was it an ironic comment of the quality of their dancing, was it merely an accident on the behalf of the jacket makers, or did the person who designed the jacket (probably a dancer themselves) not realise that inverted commas cannot be thrown about willy-nilly, but that they are in fact a greatly misimplemented grammatical feature, which when used properly can bring much happiness to the user... but I digress. Either way, from the moment I realised what their jackets actually said, I ensured that from then on anyone who said the word dancer within my earshot pronounced it “dancer” replete with inverted commas gestures.
Over the course of the next few hours, my little group [of four or more] spent the majority of our time making lists, the contents and nature of which will be revealed come the end of the year when I hand the reins over to someone else - just a reason to keep reading; and ghosting "dancers" in an attempt to get photographic evidence of the grammatical travesty (I almost wrote transvestite there... Freud would have a field day) of their jackets. Eventually I managed to ghost on particular "dancer" into the children's section at Dymocks where I got a photo from about 50 cm away and then managed to escape without being noticed, which just goes to show how much snesory awareness "dancers" have. Namely incredibly little to none.
There will be a link to a photo as soon as one is uploaded. Stay tuned.
Upon returning to the Seymour centre, we were told we had to be super quiet because of the performance going on in the theatre right next door to our holding room, so after a lot of miming, we were left to our own (albeit quiet) devices, at which point I discovered that when in doubt, lying on your back is the way to go when it comes to long periods of waiting. You heard it here first.
But back to the story, we had some storytime from Dane wherein we learned two valuable life lessons:
Lesson the first: Always make sure your fly is done up.
Lesson the second: Never listen to the Raiders March when you're locked into a school with your crappy P plater car.
It was then time to neaten ourselves up for one last performance in a completely packed theatre containing a whole load of people who are in all likelihood only now regaining full hearing. Because we were just that awesome.
We then packed up and (in my case, being the bearer of a large instrument) headed off to the Engineering entryway to pack the 'truck'. I use inverted commas because the vehicle in question was in fact Greg's car. A large one, but by no stretch of the imagination a truck. This brings me to believe that in Marching Band terms, a truck is any vehicle which could be made to contain instruments, regardless of dimension or appearance. That's something to ruminate upon...
Then came the sparkles. Once outside, we began to notice that there were sparkly-faced dancers EVERYWHERE. And as the descriptor suggests, they were covered in sparkles.
This for some un-understandable reason brings me to mention hairstyles. In addition to the loss of hair Bob was exhibiting; Jack the bass drummer had shaved his head, resulting in a scalp which was just about as entertaining as Shane's when he shaved; speaking of Shane, much entertainment was derived from feeling his hair.
As for Jacob - Holley definitely had fun.
And as an added bonus, Keevers was no longer rocking the reverse mullet. Oh happy day.
The day finished with sitting in a car with Keevers, Bob, Julian and Papa Keevers, watching Ben Mills do a Phantom of the Opera impersonation using his Trumpet jumper. Because he’s just a cool kid like that.
We also spent a lot of time trying to beat Keevers and Bob’s ex-music teacher out of the carpark. We lost.
And then I discovered what teenage boys do in their spare time...
...they play corners.
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