Robert Katz, assistant web editor
The marching band attended an invitational band exhibit at Riverside Community College on Wednesday evening, Nov. 14, to prepare for the 2013 New Year’s Day Parade in the streets of London, England. They played alongside two other Southern California high school bands from Shurr High School and Great Oak High School, as well as the world-renowned Riverside City College Marching Tigers.
Beverly performed an expanded version of their Homecoming performance, although with 11 marching sets instead of Homecoming’s previous five. The band held onto the previous show’s tunes, featuring performances of “Magical Mystery Tour” and “Lady Madonna” by the Beatles and a portion of “Gangnam Style” by PSY, including a dance break, while adding in “Strike Up the Band” by George Gershwin.
Band members saw the evening as a worthwhile endeavor, despite being less prepared than the other bands, to perform professionally.
“I think the band performed pretty well, given the amount of preparation that we had,” Assistant Drum Major senior Elbert Kim said. “I think everyone had a pretty good time and we got a good crowd response. They responded really well to ‘Gangnam Style’ and ‘Strike Up the Band,’ which is a well known tune among band members.”
However, it was apparent among some students that the band was not as prepared to compete as the other performing bands.
“It was a really interesting experience since most of the other bands were competition bands and they were a lot more serious than we were,” senior Daguan Lu said. “We weren’t technically as good, but I think we had a lot of fun nonetheless.”
Further coverage of the marching band’s London trip will be covered in the January print issue of Highlights.