What You Should Have Heard #30

22^nd Annual 

Hendersonville Golden Invitational

Sept. 18, 2010

For the seventh or eighth year, I’ve been privileged enough to announce at the Hendersonville Golden Invitational. I was jonesing for some good marching band performances since this is my only chance to experience it each year, and it was cancelled last year due to rain.

I spent 11 years in a band program, and I was in marching band for eight of those, four in high school and four in college. It's one of the things I've missed about growing up and being a responsible adult. When my friend, former roommate and at-the-time director asked me to announce in 2002, while incredibly nervous, I was very excited. I hadn't been to a competition since the last one I was in my senior year of high school. It's still a little never wracking at first, but earlier in the day there aren't as many spectators, and really, they're not there to listen to me, so as long as I don't screw something up horribly, it's all good.

This year, the weather cooperated and gave us a beautiful day. I think the temperature topped out in the upper 80s, and there was a generous breeze.

By the time the contest ended around 9 p.m., I was confident in saying that that was the smoothest any of the HGIs that I’ve been a part of had run…at least on my end. Along with announcing, I’m also responsible for keeping official performance time and having one of the band parents/helpers move the band onto the field. There were no snafus or delays.

This year is a first for me because in a little more than a week I’ll be announcing at the Lebanon, TN marching band competition. I’m a bit nervous because as opposed to HGI where I was a student of the director and good friends with the assistant director and one of the staff members as well as a handful of parents who help behind the scenes, I’m going into this as a stranger. I’m planning on having a good time, and thank God I caught this strep a week in advance so I won’t be announcing through a sore throat.

Want a couple videos of the Band of Gold and some pictures of the day? Here you go. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

Rather than loading each picture by itself to the blog site, I'm using Image Shack to batch upload the pictures and keep them in one place. Click here to view them.

Here are the videos: