Follow the Show Band as we prepare for the season, attend camps, rehearse through the heat, the rain, and the mud, and compete across the Northwest. The Kamiak Show Band is Kamiak High School's largest team, made up of 150-200 members from Mukilteo, WA. Currently under the direction of Toby Bathurst, the band competes in the Open Class of the NWAPA Circuit.
Today was the last Tuesday practice of the season. Unfortunately, the rain was not on our side today, but we were lucky enough to have indoor space.
We started off with split music warm-up. The brass were in the PAC Auditorium with Nick. The woodwinds were in a PAC classroom. The band room was occupied by the battery.
Mr. Bathurst was able to gain use of the Auxiliary Gym, so after music warm-ups we had a choreography session with the visual staff from 6-7:15. We learned a lot of new choreography for the end of the show that we are excited to put onto the field on Thursday.
From 7:30 to 8:30 we all gathered in the PAC Auditorium to rehearse the music and put the minor adjustments together. It was pretty loud sometimes!
Hopefully the weather will be a bit better for Thursday's rehearsal before we head down to Oregon this weekend.
A video of our Prelims performance yesterday at the Everett Show.
Video and photos courtesy of Cynthia Davis
Traditionally, the Puget Sound Festival of Bands is a favorite among students. Because we do not host our own show and this one is so close to home, we think of the Everett Show as our "home show." Many former band students come out to watch us perform each year. From 1994-1997 the PSFOB was actually held at Goddard Memorial Stadium, which goes to show how meaningful this perfomance is for Kamiak students (for a history of PSFOB click here).
At 9:00AM we showed up at Kamiak for a morning rehearsal on the turf field. It was raining pretty hard, and we were a little worried about how the weather would be for our performances. We ended practice an hour early, at eleven, so that we would have time to dry off before leaving for Everett.
At 1:30PM the buses departed for Everett Memorial Stadium, and by 2:30PM Kamiak was in uniform and ready for warm-ups.
Our prelims performance was scheduled for 3:54PM, and we walked off of the field knowing that it had been our best perfomance in uniform. After our performance we took a group picture. Prelims scores were announced with Kamiak taking second place both overall and in the Open Class, receiving a score of 85.05. We also received the awards for High Percussion and High Color Guard.
Dinner break was until 7:15. Our finals performance was at 8:24PM. Warm-ups went really well and there was a lot of excitement among band members. We felt good about our performance.
After finals we returned to camp briefly to put away our instruments and then headed out to full retreat. We received medals for second place which were given to us by members of Cascade's band.
Sweepstakes- Central Valley 89.35 2nd Place- Kamiak 87.08 3rd Place- Sunset 86.08 Kamiak also took the People's Choice award and the awards for High Colorguard and High Percussion.
Thank you to everyone who came out to the competition!
This post will be updated throughout the day.
9:00AM Rehearsal at Kamiak on the turf. Worked through the closer, the intro, and a bit of the Ravel before a full run.
11:15AM Rehearsal ended a bit early due to the rain so we have time to dry off before we leave at one thirty.
1:37 Buses leave Kamiak
2:00 Buses arrive in Everett
5:25 Kamiak placed second (only losing to Central Valley) with a score 85.05. We took high percussion and best colorguard. Our finals performance is at 8:24PM
Kamiak finishes with Second Place, High Percussion, High Colorguard, and the People's Choice Award. Thanks to everyone who came out to support!
Tonight we hit the field on a Friday for the fist time in a long time.
Nick Benson met early with quite a few of our members to work on choreography. It was definitely much improved and should look great tomorrow!
Most of rehearsal was spent reviewing and perfecting the Closer. This was followed by a quick music warm-up. Calvin, one of our favorite staff members, came in from college and showed up at our rehearsal tonight. We are thrilled to have him back for the weekend. After music warm-up we moved onto the turf to finish off the last half hour of rehearsal.
Tonight's rehearsal was definitely not our best, and it was frustrating for everyone. Nick gave us a talk before our run-through and we are ready to show up tomorrow morning and have the best rehearsal and performance yet.
We are very excited to be hosting Central Valley High School for the competition this weekend. CV took first place at the NWAPA Championships last year. Each of the Kamiak sections put together treats for the corresponding CV sections as a way of welcoming them to our school. We also invited them out to watch our run-through at the end of the evening, and allowed them to use our field for their senior ceremony. We are excited to cheer them on tomorrow and to watch one of the best bands in the northwest perform!
Our last official football game was tonight, and it was by far the most memorable game! The Kamiak football team beat Snohomish 35-21 in a well-played game.
Because the game was on a Thursday night, the student section was a lot smaller than usual, but the Pep Band had no problem stepping it up. Despite the smaller crowd, this game was particularly rowdy and was the highlight of four years of football games for most seniors. We were on our feet the enitre time, and joined the cheerleaders in cheering our team to victory.
Our halftime run-through was one of our best football performances, and we are getting excited for the Everett show this weekend! After a well-deserved third quarter break the pep band returned to the stands and Mr. Bathurst graciously allowed the seniors to pick their favorite songs for their final quarter. Two of the tunes chosen were "Louie, Louie" and "You Can Call Me Al."
After the game while students were packing up, a few Snohomish football players spoke with two band members. They said that our band was very good, that we were better than many of the other pep bands, and that they enjoyed our playing. The seniors were the last to leave the stadium. Several stayed behind in the stands to reflect on their experiences over the last four years at Frank Goddard Memorial Stadium. Another group of band kids were having a dance party in the parking lot to celebrate. Overall it was a great night for everyone who attended and is something we will all remember for years to come.
A handful of our winds showed up today at 4:30 to learn choreography for the end of the show with Nick Benson. It was really helpful because we were able to focus on dot cleaning during rehearsal.
At five thirty we started practice with a warm-up lap and basics block. We quickly moved into visual sectionals, where we learned choreography for the beginning of the show. This was followed by a brief music warm-up in sectionals. The remainder of the evening was spent cleaning up the first half of our show. The weather held out for rehearsal.
We have a football game this Thursday. Our next rehearsal is Friday.
Saturday is the Everett Show.
Yesterday was our fourth fooball game. The band arrived at around 6:15 to change into uniform and warm-up. We then marched into the stands to take our usual place next to the student section. Since it was Senior Night, we waited while they recognized all of the senior football players and cheerleaders. We then played The Star Spangled Banner followed by the Kamiak Fight Song to kick off the game.
It wasn't raining very hard, so we left the stands with about five minutes left in the second quarter to warm-up for our halftime performance. As we marched onto the field they announced the names of the Show Band seniors. For the past three games we have performed the Intro and the Ravel since the entire show is too long. This time we peformed the Ravel, the Tango, and the Closer. It was very exciting to show the school a different portion of our show. As soon as we had finished the show the dance team joined us on the field and we played "Runaway Baby" by Bruno Mars for their routine.
We took third quarter off to get dinner from the weenie wagon (thanks parent volunteers!) and to take a break from pep music. We finished off fourth quarter by playing some of our favorite pep tunes such as "Land of 1000 Dances" and "You Can Cal Me Al."
Kamiak ended up winning the game against Cascade. The student body stormed the field and then the football team came and joined us for the fight song.
The colorguard rehearsing as the band shows up at 5:30PM
Our first rainy rehearsal of the season! It was just starting to rain at around 5:30 when practice began this evening. We moved into basics block, and worked on our slides for about thirty minutes.
By the time we were on the field and learning the new drill it was starting to pour.
Nick was teaching us the end of our show, which is a short, post-show movement that comes after the Closer. We pushed through the first hour and a half of rehearsal, working until we had learned the last few sets. As soon as we had learned the drill we had quick rehearsal wrap-up and were excused at around 7:15PM.
Tomorrow we have a football game!
Make sure everyone has a rain jacket for future rehearsals!
Colorguard joined us today for a full rehearsal. The band worked on cleaning drill and added a new piece of woodwind choreography alongside the colorguard.
The battery spent most of tonight's rehearsal reviewing tempos throughout the show.
We ended with a quick music warm-up and a full run of the show at the adjusted tempos.
Kamiak did very well at Tumwater. I heard a lot of good comments from parents. After a quick morning music rehearsal in the PAC we headed off to the competition. Immediately after we arrived we unloaded the buses, dressed in our uniforms, and went off to warm-up for prelims. It was very wet, but our perfomance was pretty good overall. We ended prelims with first place.
After the prelims awards ceremony we headed back to camp for a 5:00 dinner. The hot spaghetti and meatballs were very delicious since the weather was a bit miserable. Since our finals performance wasn't until around 8:30, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to watch the first few finals perfomances. At 6:30PM we headed to warm-ups. Our finals performance was also very good. We had a quick wrap-up after finals with the staff and rushed out for full retreat.
Our second competition is tomorrow. Although rehearsal yesterday was a little rough, we are very excited to go to Tumwater and show off our new choreography.
We have a rehearsal at Kamiak at 8:00AM.Our Prelims performance time is 2:15PM hope to see you all there! We estimate that our finals performance time will be around 8:30PM and will be followed by the awards ceremony. Last year we received first place in our division and second overall.
This show is much closer to home than our Oregon shows, thanks to everyone who is coming to support us!
It is definitely getting colder outside. Don't forget to bring jackets to rehearsal!
We received a few inspirational speeches from the staff, and are ready for a fantastic rehearsal this Thursday.
Tonight we focused on choreography throughout the Tango. The choreography is in pairs for the most part and it should look really cool in the show. We had a short music warm-up, but the choreography took most of the evening to learn. We are very excited to perform it on Saturday in Tumwater.
Our first show yesterday went very well. We gathered at Kamiak at 5:30AM, loaded the buses, and headed down to Oregon. After sitting on buses for four and a half hours, we arrived at Hillsboro Stadium at around 10:30AM. We were exhausted but excited. We quickly unloaded the buses, changed into half-uniform and went to warm-ups.
We had a short visual block followed by music warm-up. This was done in sectionals before we came together to play as a full ensemble prior to our gate time. We put on our jackets and went to the gate. Our performance was at 12:50PM. Following every performance we circle up so that Nick can talk to us. Prelims had gone well, but we didn't feel that it was our best performance. We changed quickly and headed to the awards ceremony where it was announced that we had scored a 74.4 and received third place.
Dinner was at four, provided by our wonderful chaperones and parent volunteers. Chicken and potatoes, yum!
By five o'clock we were changed into our uniforms again. Our horns were polished, and we were ready for a great warm-up and performance. We performed at seven and walked off of the field feeling great.
The awards ceremony was at 8:20PM. We received a score of 77.05 (big jump!) and placed fourth overall. We are very excited about this score because no Kamiak band has received a score this high at the first circuit show of the season. We know that we went to Hillsboro and gave it our best.
Here is a video of our finals performance. It was very windy, but it was a good performance.
Video by Cynthia Davis
Thank you to all of our chaperones, staff, and volunteers who made this trip possible!
We will do our best to make updates to this post throughout the day. Thanks for supporting us!
5:40AM We arrive at Kamiak to load the buses. Lots of excitement in the air!
6:13AM Buses depart Kamiak for Hillsboro.
9:30AM Bathroom break at a rest stop about ten miles from Vancouver.
10:26AM Arrive at Hillsboro Stadium. Pumped to unload and get ready for our first prelims performance.
1:30PM We have finished our first show and are sitting in the stands getting ready to watch a few bands. Our prelims performance was decent, and we are ready to come back tonight and give it our best.
3:08PM Kamiak places third in the Open Class prelims performance with a score of 74.4. We perform eighth for finals. Our gate time for finals is 7:00.
7:47PM We walked off of the field feeling really good about our show. We are headed to the awards ceremony now.
8:39PM Kamiak takes fourth place with a score if 77.05
9:15PM After a short pow-wow, Show Band departs for home!!
1:30AM We arrive at Kamiak after a long day.
Four of the senior girls show off their footie pajamas at the rest stop on the way to the competition.
We have the whole show off of the metronome. Today's half-day rehearsal was very exciting and we took some big steps towards a successful season. Our show chairs arrived as well. The colorguard and some of the winds were able to rehearse with them after our lovely parents put them together. Although the rehearsal was long, we were able to maintain focus and end with a successful run.
Tomorrow is our first show! We are very excited to perform our completed show for an audience for the first time. At five thirty in the morning we will arrive at Kamiak, board the buses, and leave for Oregon by six.
Our prelims gate time is 12:40PM at Hillsboro Stadium. Thanks for all of the continuing support!
This evening we said goodbye to Dr. Beat for two thirds of our show! We are very proud to say that our entire closer is met-free. At tomorrow's rehearsal we will pull the metronome off of the Tango and our show will be complete.
At 5:30 we jumped straight into music sectional warm-ups. We then worked our way backwards through the closer, until we we relied entirely on the hands of our drum majors. Tonight's rehearsal was one of the best rehearsals in a while. The full run at 8:30 was very exciting, and tomorrow's full run will be even better.
This week is another crazy one! With our first show this coming weekend in Hillsboro, OR we still have a lot to work on before Deux is performance ready. There are three rehearsals this week in addition to music testing for the Tango.
Immediately following basics block we jumped into music rehearsal. We tried something new, warming up in a cricle. It helps us to hear the parts around us so that we can play more in tune and with better dynamics. We pulled the final part of the Ravel (one of our middle pieces) off the metronome. The winds started on the baseball field to make some minor adjustments and at around 8:00PM joined the percussion on the football field. Our final run through was pretty successful and we are excited to take the Closer off of the metronome on Thursday.
