Spasmodic Contemplations

Goin' Out With a Bang...

God, these past few days have just...eh, well for the band anyway. Thursday night was our last practice of the year, and the seniors' (including me) last practice ever. It SUCKED SO BAD! That has got to be the worst practice I have ever been to in my entire time in band! Nobody was doing right, making stupid mistakes, our director was being bitchy because she was trying to show off to her boyfriend (who is the director of one of the best bands in the state), and the freakin percussion were being pricks and just doing what they pleased. The band was going like, 3 different tempos at the same time on all the songs. Everything just sucked. The Seniors were upset especially, even though everyone else was too. Even the loud kids were being quiet. So yeah, it was bad. But then, it's always been tradition to do badly on the last practice before the last competition.

And so Friday came along, and it was our last home game of the regular season--the last home game that we KNEW we'd be at home. So it was also Senior Recognition night. We all got to line up and walk down the 50 yard line with our parents, get our names called out to be recognized...yada yada yada. It was good and well, bad too. It felt weird, cuz I remember watching the other seniors do that, but then there I was doing the same thing. Then halftime came around. Before we went on, me and my friend were all somber and stuff because we knew it was our last at home performance...yeah, so we're sentimental sometimes. But hey, I've been in band for 6 years; I can be. Anyways, the other band took 12 minutes out of the 20 for halftime, so we only had about 8 to get our 15 minute show on the field. We did SO good. Oh man, we were awesome; that was probably our best performance all year. And the intensity, the flow, it was all great. We really performed, and we only went about a minute or so over the 8 minutes we had:). So we were all happy about that one, but then there was today...

We had a competition today. It kinda got off to a bad start. Like, several of the majorettes about missed the buses leaving to the competition because they misread the time that we were supposed to be at the competition. Anyways, we go, get dressed, warm up, and perform (Our last competitive performance!:(). It was good; it really was. Not as good as Friday's but probably almost that good. Okay, so I could've done a lot better...I messed up the freakin salute of all things! But overall, we did quite well.

After the performance, we just got out of our uniforms and hung around for like, 6 hours. Yeah, watched other bands perform and talked and ate and stuff. Then me and my friend went to go get back into our uniforms so that we could go receive the awards; we're band captains ya know. The other Seniors were already in uniform. We came back, watched a couple more bands, watched the exhibitions...the college band that did an exhibition was SO awesome...as always. They just blew me away and made me get chills up my spine. And the first trumpet is alumni from our school band, so we were all pretty proud. Oh yeah, and then it started raining a little harder than it had been before. Maybe that was some kind of forshadowing...

After they performed, all the band captains from all the schools rushed the field to try and get the 50 yard line (guess it's just tradition). We didn't quite make it, for the first time this year, we got the 47. That's okay I guess. There was no way we could have gotten it. The people from this other band were blocking the gate, so we couldn't get out fast enough. So that was bad. And then they started announcing the scores of all the bands. We did good; everyone got I's except the percussion...they got II's. Surprise, surprise. Well, a LOT of the other bands' percussions got II's as well. Guess the judge was just a meanie...like the rest of them. Then they did the "Best in class..." stuff. None of ours got anything! Not even our majorettes! Not even the freakin danceline! Nothing! And then they did the band placements. We didn't even place 3rd! In fact, we only placed 5th! And get this: the band that placed 4th in class played "Land of 1000 Dances." Oh MY god...Land of a freakin 1000??? What the crap! That is f***ing shit, it is. We were so much better than them, and everyone knows it. And they also played one of the songs we played: "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker." We played it 100 times better than them. Everyone said so, and we know so. And the band that placed 3rd? I hate them. God I hate them. They're just not nice people, and I know we were/are better than them. They have this fiddler dude play in the pit (on the sidelines). They have done that for the past 3 years! And it wasn't even their idea! They stole it from another school who did it 10 times better than them! Tney're so freakin' retarded...AGH! And when the announced the band that got 2nd, we all just knew that we didn't have best in class. We knew, and we were upset. Me and this other girl were crying, and my friend was just standing there. Talk about utter humiliation. We all left in this kinda...dazed state. We got back to the buses and just kinda...sat there all the way home. Actually, we found out about the bands that beat us and all then. It was VERY upsetting. Oh my god, we were so pissed off. I still am. The judges just screwed us over so bad! What the hell? They screwed a lot of bands over, but I think we got the worst of it. If there was an award for Band Screwage of the Year, we'd so deserve it. It would be ours. That is just, NOT right, at all. The band judges were 3 old farts that...I don't even know what they were thinking. They weren't thinking. They obviously don't know what a good band is, or at least a good performance. We were good, we were. I watched the video on one of my friend's video camera. A few mistakes, but overall, pretty good. Not much worse than Friday's awesome performance. Oh my freakin god, LAND OF 1000??? That just says it all. It's almost hysterical it's so f***ed up. As you can tell, I am not happy...at all.

Wonderful huh? That was our last competition ever. Goin' out with a bang, yeah, like a suicidal kind of bang. On the way home, our trophy for getting a superior rating fell on the floor. This guy was like, "A symbol of our fallen faith." Yeah, guess it was. It's worthless; I don't even care to see it anymore. That was just shit. What a way to end our Senior year in marching band...