Saturday, June 14, 2025
We got to the festival barn (we are in Iowa) about twenty minutes before the first band. The strangers who sat in my seat from last year last night were already there. Darned strangers. I sat one table back. Sigh. Mike and Mary were behind us, Dan and Stacy were ahead of us, and Jenny was with us. We were set up perfectly (plus strangers).
The barn has weirdly good acoustics. We enjoyed the morning bands. Our band played well and Stuart got the best soloist award. Keith better come play soprano next year so he can stop Stuart’s streak. Stop a streak?! What am I saying? That was a bad idea.
The Fountain City brass band was here again. They won NABBA this year at the championship level, so they really shouldn’t be competing – it’s like an NFL team playing in a middle school tournament just to get the trophy. They had a different conductor last year who was really pompous and I just wanted them to go away. This year their music director talked and was hilarious, and their guest conductor just conducted and looked like Stanley Tucci. I really enjoyed listening to them.
Fountain City played a How to Train Your Dragon medley. I love that music so much. Their introduction mentioned how hard it was. Metro Brass just played Keith’s arrangement of it and I asked Jenny if it was hard. She puffed out her cheeks and rolled her eyes. “Yes! It’s really hard!” I responded, “And they have a whole band.” She threw up her hands and gave me today’s title quote, “They’ve got nets and safety all over! We just had us!”
Keith’s arrangement was better. They never soared. What is dragon music without soaring?
Jenny and I thought we needed a picture of us to help remember our very good day of listening. Our first selfie try didn’t have the camera turned around.
It might not have been that funny, but we had been in that barn for a long time.
I only left the building once all day. We walked down a block and went to a store and bought corn. (It is Iowa)
I am looking forward to next year already.