Saint James Marching Band 2012

The Saint James Band begins their Finals Exhibition performance.

     Avid readers of ChuckBlog for the past few years will remember me mentioning my membership in my high-school's band, the Saint James Marching Trojans. You can check out a post on them here for a little bit of background and stuff, or check out the official site here at StjBand.org.

     And so this year's band season has come and gone, and I would be sorely remiss if I did not tell my readers of the band's success in San Antonio Texas at the BOA Alamodome Super-Regional. But first, a little background.

     The Saint James band is... different from most bands you'll find at a BOA (Bands of America) Competition. Bands of America is like the major-league of marching bands (there's also a league for drum-corps, but this is the highest competition a marching band can compete in). Most of the bands you find at a BOA competition (especially one as major as a Super-Regional or say, Grand Nationals) are very, very  good. And they also average to be very big. Do you see that picture up there? Yeah, we're not big.

     The Saint James Band is a 1A band. Every band is categorized into classes based on their size, and we are the smallest declension of this group. This creates very interesting side-effects. I'll tell you straight up that 1A bands do not win BOA competitions. They just... don't. You can argue all you want, but the 4A and 3A bands are the ones that get to finals, not the 1A bands. This is just because of the way that BOA is structured. I could go on a whole tangeant about how I feel it could be done better, but it's set up that it doesn't really matter what you do, it's how well you do it (some bands purchase shows almost identical to their last ones simply to maintain a higher position).

     The Saint James band, however, is not held down by the constraints of being a bigger band. We're able to take risks, experiment, and usually pull it off quite well. So our goal, as a 1A band, is to win our class. And that's exactly what we did! That's right, the Saint James Band pulled off a great victory and got to perform in finals via exhibition (not graded, just for entertainment). Take a look at the results, and if you don't believe me, check here.

    
Class A
1st - Saint James School, AL
2nd - Jackson Academy, MS
3rd - Hidalgo H.S., TX

Outstanding Music Performance - Saint James School, AL & Jackson Academy, MS
Outstanding Visual Performance - Jackson Academy, MS
Outstanding General Effect - Saint James School, AL

     I'll tell you, it's an amazing experience winning our class in BOA. It was also amazing getting to perform with some of the best bands in the country. Winning our class was close, and Jackson Academy did a great job.

Performing in the Alamodome

     Alright, that's enough about the competition and such, why don't I give you some background on our show this year, Charming. I'm going to go ahead and say that I was a little bit uneasy about this year's show, but it's become one of my favorites that we've done. Charming is the story of Cinderella from the prince's point of view. This was a really cool show. If you're ever able to find any footage of it, watch it. You'll be entertained.

     We had a whole bunch of cool songs like "Can't Buy Me Love," "Single Ladies," and "I Will Always Love You." I've heard that we were the only band that got a standing ovation on our day of prelims. I'm very glad that all the work we put into the show payed off in the end, and I'm also ready for some concert band!

Class 1A Champions!