Published: October 05, 2008 12:17 am      

Five marching bands advance to regionals

Five Goshen-area marching bands advanced to regional competition after their performances at Saturday’s district contest at Concord High School.

Goshen, Concord, Fairfield, Northridge and NorthWood high schools all received gold ratings in their respective classes and will compete at regional sites in two weeks. Wawasee was awarded a silver rating.

Goshen finished third overall in Class A and director Tom Cox said he was glad to see the band closing the gap on second-place Penn and first place Lake Central high schools.

“I am really pleased. I think we got a lot better through the week,” Cox said.

Cox said his students will now work on getting the show cleaner and perfecting the changes that were added this week.

“I feel really good,” he said.

Concord sweeps

In Class B, Concord swept the three award categories of best music, best visual and best general effect.

“I am really, really happy with today’s performance,” director Gay Burton said. “This is definitely the best we have done so far.”

With four more weeks to go, Burton said her students are pushing as hard as they did at the start of the season.

“This show is so difficult,” she said. “The kids have been relentless. We haven’t had a moment of wavering. They are on the hunt to be the best they can be.”

Northridge High School performed their entire show for the first time and director Brad Zook said he couldn’t be more pleased.

“The end is new and it is very difficult,” he said. “My goal was to get through the show without collapsing and we did that.”

Wawasee High School Director Fred Elliott said he saw an improvement on the field Saturday after a shaky morning rehearsal.

“The kids really stepped up,” he said. “There were parts of the show that were the best of the year.”

In Class C, NorthWood won best music and best visual.

“The show is just outstanding,” NorthWood director Gordon Couch said. “Our kids have a lot of opportunities to make impressions on the judges and on the audience.”

Couch said he was pleased with the students’ performance, calling it one of the best runs of the season; “although there are always things to fix,” he added.

The band has been fairly inconsistent so far in the marching season, which Couch called surprising. With two sections made up almost entirely of freshmen, it will be important to make sure the show is clean from here on out, he said.

Fairfield was awarded best general effect, as well as its first gold rating as a Class C band.

“Last week we had issues with the sun,” director Mel Carpenter said. “This week we were a lot more solid. The kids are a lot happier today with their performance.”

Carpenter said the challenge of this season is to get all of his marchers performing at the same level with a large contingent of eighth- and ninth-graders.

“We need to get past the technical aspect to get to the passion of the show,” he said.

The Class A and C bands, Goshen, Fairfield and NorthWood, will travel to Lafayette Jefferson High School Oct. 18 for regional competition. Concord and Northridge in Class B will perform at Chesterton.

The top 10 bands in each class will advance to the new semi-state competition to compete with the top 10 bands from the southern half of the state. Semi-state will be held at four sites in the greater Indianapolis area Oct. 25 before the final 10 bands are selected for state finals Nov. 1 at Lucas Oil Stadium.