Winter Percussion

Though for most kids the busy season is over, our award-winning winter percussion has been hard at work. This year's show is entitled "Free." This past week alone, these dedicated students worked on Friday and Saturday.

While they were at practice on Friday, the rest of the band kids were playing in the pep band cheering on the boys basketball game. The Winter Percussion rehearsed from 2:00PM-9:00PM.

On Saturday they spent ten hours rehearsing in order to hold up their reputation as one of the best Winter Percussion groups around.

Championships Recap

Bus One leaving Mukilteo on Friday (photo by Cynthia Davis)

On Friday after school we loaded the buses and trailers for our trip down to Hillsboro. By 3:30PM we had left the school and were on our way to Oregon. We hit traffic, so we were a bit late to stop for dinner at Exit 108. Our original itinterary had us stopping for dinner at five, but because of the traffic our dinner break was from 6:15-7.

It had been raining pretty hard, and after the staff checked out the field at Tenino High School where we were supposed to rehearse, we decided to skip it and push through to Hillsboro. We had a quick bathroom break about an hour after dinner and arrived at Glencoe High School in Hillsboro at around 11PM.
After unloading the buses we had a quick meeting with Mr. Bathurst to discuss our plans for the evening. Lights out was at 11:45PM.



Back of the line for breakfast!

Wake-up call was at 7:30AM, followed by breakfast at 8:30. By 9:30 we were headed to Hillsboro Stadium for an early warm-up block since we had missed our rehearsal the night before.

Our morning rehearsal/warm-up block at Hillsboro Stadium (photo by Stuart Pitts)

After our morning visual and music warm-up block we headed to lunch. At 1:15PM we were back at camp, changing into uniform for our Prelims warm-up. At 2:00 we walked to our warm-up area. Our Prelims performance was at 3:45.

Headed to our prelims performance (photo courtesy of Stuart Pitts)

We did not feel great about our prelims show. The whole show had just felt a bit off. After going to the awards ceremony, we received fifth place with a score of 86. Only .5 away from Evergreen High School! We had never placed this high before and were very excited to perform in finals.

Dinner was cooked by our lovely parent volunteers. We ate burgers, salad, veggies, and pudding. A few alumni even stopped by the camp to say hello.

As we prepared for our finals performance there was a lot of excitement in the air. We were ready to give it our all. We headed to our last warm-up as the 2012 Kamiak Show Band.

Nick says a few words before we head to our finals performance (photo by Stuart Pitts)

We walked off of the field after finals feeling great about our performance. It had definitely been the best run of the season. We circled up to listen to a words from Stuart Pitts, Nick Benson, and Mr. Bathurst. All of them were very excited and very proud of what we had accomplished this year. A lot of tears were shed. After this we broke off quickly into sections and subsections, thanking the staff and each other for everything put into this program.

We changed out of uniform and headed off to the awards ceremony. We were happy to learn that our score had jumped to 87.45 and we had finished fifth, higher than the show band had ever placed!

These seniors got Nick Benson a birthday cake, since his birthday was the day after Championships.

At around 11:20PM we left Hillsboro Stadium and headed home. We stopped twice for bathroom breaks. One in Toutle Creek. We arrived safely at Kamiak at around 3:00AM (because of daylight savings time).

Thanks to everyone who supported us this year. Every staff member, chaperone, roadie, volunteer, and fan means the world to us. We could not do it without you!

Check the Gallery for more photos from the weekend.

Puget Sound Festival of Bands (Everett Show) Recap

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!

Everett Show

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!

Tumwater Recap

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.

Video of the bands at full retreat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3lXj457s1M&feature=plcp

Video of the awards ceremony:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJtcGBwz7co&feature=plcp

Here are the results for Open Class:

Open Class

	Prelims	Finals	Average
Kamiak	86.5	87.4	86.9
*Newport	77.9		39.0
North Kitsap	73.7	73.9	73.8

 (Wenatchee is AAA Class but took second overall with a score of 81.9)

Open Class Caption Awards:
Best General Effect	Kamiak HS
Best Music	Kamiak HS
Best Marching	Kamiak HS
Best Color Guard	Kamiak HS
Best Percussion	Kamiak HS
Best Drum Major	*Newport HS

Sweepstakes Winner

Frank Minear – Sweepstakes

Kamiak HS

Tumwater School Dist Leadership Team

Kamiak trumpet section got up early and met at Denny's before the show.

Tumwater Show

8:00AM Morning rehearsal in the PAC.

10:00AM Buses have left Kamiak.

3:16PM Our prelims performance went well. We received a score of 86.5 (this is not a circuit show).

5:00PM Dinner! Spaghetti and meatballs!

8:30PM Finals performance

9:55PM Just got back from full retreat. Kamiak takes Sweepstakes!

12:10AM Buses arrive at Kamiak.

Goddard Day

Yesterday was a long day for the Kamiak Show Band, but it was well worth our time.

After a late night at the football game we were back at Frank Goddard Memorial Stadium for 9:00AM rehearsal. Jack led us in stretches and then we did basic exercises with the visual staff. It was good to have Calvin Fackrell, one of our visual staff members, back for the day (he is currently studying to be a music teacher and cannot be at our regular rehearsals). The basics exercises are designed to engage our core muscles needed for marching.

Following this, we jumped right into drill with Nick Benson. We learned a lot of new choreography for the Tango, which we are very excited about! It still needs practice, but we were able to perform it at the end of the day.

We split off into music rehearsal in sectionals and subsectionals to work on the music for the Closer. Although there is still a lot of room for improvement, by the end of sectionals the music was sounding much better and we were able to put it together after lunch.

Lunch was absolutely delicious. We had burgers provided by our lovely parent volunteers, and desserts, drinks, and fruit provided by the students. Thanks to all of the parents who helped to feed all of the hungry teenagers!

After lunch we finished reviewing the drill. We worked on reviewing both the Intro and the Ravel, and combining all of the drill we have learned so far. It was hard work, but by 5:00PM we were very excited for our performance.

We changed into our uniforms for our the first reveal of our show. It was so cool to look up into the stands and see so many parents, friends, and alumni there to support us. We began with sectional performances by the colorguard, the percussion, and then the winds. All of the staff members were introduced to the parents. Then we performed a musical standstill, which was followed by all of the drill and music we know so far. At the very end we invited Kamiak Show Band Alumni down to perform the fight song with us. It was such a cool experience to see their continued support for the band.

The competitive season is so close, and we are excited to perform around the northwest. Soon we will have the closer drill on the field and in two weeks we have our first competition in Hillsboro, OR at the Sunset Classic!


Photo courtesy of Justin Gaceta

More Goddard pictures coming to the Gallery soon!