Very Happy:

Yesterday was our band field trip to Hickory for the festival, and it was just as perfect as it could have been. After eating lunch at the mall, watching a few other bands perform (and getting taken out of the auditorium after a while because people were being loud and laughing at this one band), it was our turn to go onstage. The percussionists (that's me!) set stuff up while the rest of the band went to wait to use the warm-up room. Then, we joined them in there, a room full of these beautiful pianos that I was tempted to play because I was stressed out, and that is my outlet usually. Mr. Talbert spent most of the warm-up time tuning the instruments so we wouldn't sound crappy onstage. Then, we left to go on, and it was very bright on the stage; one could not see the judges as more than blurred shadows from my place behind the snare. The first song that we played was American March, which was the one song that I played on the snare, and I was afraid afterward that I did badly; in effect, I played Joyful Journey with less enthusiasm, though was very at-peace with the world by the time we made it to Two Celtic Folksongs, our very last tune. There's this section in that song, from measure 11 (pick-up) all the way to the beginning of the horn and saxophone solo that just blows me away; I don't play at that part (I play the xylophone in the faster section) but it's great to listen to the trumpets and flutes and dance discreetly behind my xylo. Anyways, we got off the stage, and I was still unsure about whether we did a good job or not; so the percussionists grabbed the equipment we would need for the sight-reading room and we headed over there. I was on the bass drum for the sight-reading, with Chris on the snare, and the sight-reading was super-easy, the only "difficult" part being its time signature switch from 3/4 to 4/4. After performing some hymn variation song with no problem at all, we headed back to the front of the building to wait for our results to turn up on the board (we still weren't trusted enough to sit through Meadowlark's concert). It had been mostly drizzly and gray through that day, weather made only more depressing by a small, depressing town that was "very likely to have many racists," as a frightened Ryan said during one walk from the bus to the building. It had been really cold all morning, but now it was a nice refreshing temperature, after after what seemed like forever, Mr. Talbert came back outside and ushered us all into the auditorium, where one of the judges stood on the stage ready to announce our score. He said that we got a score of "Superior," which is another way to say all ones, or perfect. So we left high-fiving each other and what-not, and were ranting about our success all the way back home; today was a pretty good day as well. We just got done watching Happy Days!