33 bands competed in today's competition, plus an exhibition performance by sponsoring Cascade High School.

• WV placed 4th in the AA division and will not perform in finals this evening. WV's score was 67.10.
  
• Overall, Spokane schools have done very well today.
• U-High 1st place A division and a clean sweep of all A Division caption awards.
• Mead placed 1st in the "Open" class and High Visual Effect and High General Effect.
• Mt Spokane placed 4th in the "Open" class.

7 bands scored higher than 80 and one scored higher than 90! (And it wasn't Mead!)

Finals competition performances will run from about 6 pm to 10 pm and the closing "Retreat" ceremony (all bands on the field) will be at about 9:30 to 10 pm.

Results will be posted here shortly after their announcement between 4:30 pm and 5 pm.

All 1st place bands in their division will advance to Finals. The remaining finalists bands will be selected based on their score.

There have been many AMAZING performances today. Some played well, some entertained really well, and some have done both.

A little light rain is falling now.

Link to Youtube video of this morning's performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a41R8nbjxpY

An HD version of this video will be uploaded within a day or three... Ed

A random item learned today - at the Lilac Festival Parade in Spokane, in May, the Klahowya and Central Kitsap marching bands both march in a similar parade in Bremerton the same morning - the load their buses, cross the Sound on the ferry, drive to Spokane, and march in the Lilac Festival Parade that evening.

I am at the Memorial Stadium in Everett, and contrary to earlier weather reports, the weather is quite reasonable with broken overcast - no rain!

I hope to post at least a "mini video" of the WV preliminary competition, which starts at 9:36 am. The video will be posted here some time later today and an announcement will appear here and on our WVBand Facebook page .... Ed

Here is the detailed schedule for the WV Band for the Puget Sound Festival of Bands trip.

Here is a link to the Memorial Stadium location where the band competition is held. Take the Broadway exit off of northbound I-5 in Everett.

You can park in the nearby neighborhoods off of 37th, or you can make a U-turn on Broadway and enter the long driveway to the stadium parking lot (near 39th on the map). Its kind of hard to explain - best to look at the satellite image view, zoomed in on the stadium.

At the Craft Fair we will also be having a bake sale. We are asking the parents/grandparents/students of our band to make bake sale items to be sold during the craft fair. In the past our bake sale has done quite well at the craft fair.

This year we are asking for the parents/grandparents/students to think about specialty items for our bake sale. Like last year our Craft Sale is right around Halloween. Anything specially made with a Halloween theme sold really well last year so think about that. We would like to make sure we have a variety of items to offer. Specialty items are great sellers, so if you have the ability to do something like that it would be great.

All items have to be labeled to let us know if there are nuts in it and what student gets credit for the item. The more items made in your student's name. The more money that can go into your student's account.

Heidi Weston will be heading up the bake sale this year...if you have any questions or would like to tell her what you are bringing then please give her a call at 499-6183.

Thanks!
Sam Roderick

We have moved the booster meeting out 1 week in order to allow us to focus on the last band competition in Everett.

We have a lot of things happening in the next couple of weeks. Please get involved in something to help the band if you can.

Reminders...

Sale Raffle Tickets!!
All tickets and money are due by Friday Oct 29th. That gives you 12 days to sell as many Raffle Tickets as possible. If you need more or want to turn in tickets let me know. 710-1467

Everett Trip this weekend
We will be leaving Friday Oct 22nd for this trip. Mr. Loucks will get out the schedule one day this week...watch for it. We are also looking for parents to make some goodies for this trip. Cookies, brownies, rice krispie treats, etc...

Band Booster Meeting
We will have our Band Booster Meeting on Tuesday Oct 26th at 7pm in the band room. We will have Parent sign up for shifts at the craft fair. Come and get involved in the band,

Craft Fair
Saturday Oct 30th from 9-4 is our craft fair. It is shaping up to be a good craft fair this year. Please tell everyone about our craft fair. Please send email...use Facebook...twitter...or any other means you have to tell everyone you know and ask them to tell everyone they know about our craft fair. Bake Sale- we will be asking for bake sale items...please start thinking about that. I will send a separate email in regards to the bake sale.

As you can see we are going to be really busy the rest of this month. There is something to do for anyone that wants to help...don't stand on the sideline...get in the game!

Thanks for your support of our band.
Sam Roderick

The West Valley Eagle Marching Band took 1st place in the AA Division in finals competition at the Yakima Harvest Festival Marching Band Competition.

West Valley also received caption awards for:

• Best Percussion
• Best Color Guard
• Best Drum Major
• Best General Effect
  

A special thank you to Mt Spokane High School music director Scott Jones and to the Mt Spokane High School Band for their huge support for West Valley High School-Spokane!

PUGET SOUND FESTIVAL OF BANDS – Everett

Our prelims performance is at 9:36 AM – Saturday, October 23

Complete schedule will be passed out at Monday’s marching band rehearsal
More info later.

The detailed schedule and info on money needed for meals is now available:

• 2010 Harvest Schedule.pdf

Reminder - Parents - if you go to watch, please take some still photos or video to share with us if you can. You can send still photo and short video clips from your cell phone or smart phone to bandboosters "at" wvbands.org

You can also send a text message with scores and awards to bandboosters "at" wvbands.org

And we will get those posted on the web site.

If you have some video, send an email to let us know and we will arrange a way to get a copy. Thank you!

WV fans will be sure to like the second photo in the sequence.

http://www.spokesman.com/picture-stories/sounds-thunder-2010/

Update
Seattle Times coverage of the 2010 Sounds of Thunder band competition in Spokane.

Also, Grants Pass (Oregon) High School Marching Band is one of just ten high school bands marching in the 2010 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

Awards to West Valley High School Eagle Marching Band

• 2nd place A division
• Best Auxiliary
  
• Best Drum Major
  

Complete list of all competition awards is here: http://www.spokanethunder.org/news/events/sounds_of_thunder/results.html

Videos
Videos of other band performances and the awards ceremony are available from Goodsport Video Productions. For information on purchasing a DVD, call Kevin Egeland at 509-475-9355. They are an independent production company; I had a chance to watch them in action and they were doing a very professional job. Neither I nor Band Boosters have any affiliation with them. I am just passing this information a long for those who might be interested.

This video is available in both -720p and -1080p HD video. The 1080p version requires a very fast multi-core computer and a fast Internet connection to play smoothly.

Youtube address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW0ENlkD9Lk

Time permitting I will put either the prelim or the finals video on to our Facebook page.

Link to Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrCIC4CvaLM

This is the "finals" competition performance. I will post the preliminary perhaps on Sunday.

You can watch this in full screen, -720p HD:

West Valley had a very nice performance in prelim competition at Sounds of Thunder with a score of 68.64.

I will post an HD video of their finals performance very late Saturday evening and an HD video of their preliminary (daytime) competition performance sometime on Sunday... Ed

A big thank you from me to the Spokane Thunder organization for their hospitality in enabling me to video record the performances from inside the press box at the 50 yard line.

2010 Joe Albi-Sounds of Thunder Schedule (PDF)

An HD video of this year's fall show, performed at Friday night's half time, is available here.

Sorry for the crowd noise - that is always a problem at football game performances. You'll be able to hear the band better when we get to the competition performances. And because the competition stadiums are larger and higher, you'll get a better view of the formations too.

The video is available on Youtube here in SD and HD versions.

Or you can watch in this Youtube Viewer:


If you have trouble accessing YouTube (access to YouTube is blocked from some locations), the following video streams off of my server. Click on the full screen icon at lower right to watch in full screen.