The smoke from the California fires caused problems with many athletic activities scheduled for the week before break. One of those affected was the practice times and events for the James Logan Marching Band and Color Guard’s final week of the season.
After delays, setbacks, and cancellations, the James Logan Band and Color Guard will perform their show “Savage Beauty” for the last time on Friday the 30th at the Friends and Family Night.
The first big setback upon the arrival of the smoke was that the WBA, the association holding the competition, had to completely cancel the James Logan Invitational.
“It’s a tremendous disappointment…as the event is one of our biggest sources of income,” band director Adam Wilke said.
The event is usually the biggest contributor of funds to compensate for the costs of the buses the band spends on every show. Because of the cancelation, the band is in now in serious need of money. Despite these difficulties, the band held strong and scheduled more practices for the week before Thanksgiving break and the final competition of the year in hopes that the smoke would clear enough for a few full rehearsals.
During the next few smoky days, the band and color guard found places to have the 340 members practice inside and away from the smoke. However, as the week progressed, this tactic could not continue as other groups used these spaces. After the smoke refused to clear, many hard conversations led the band directors to decide to cancel the scheduled Friends and Family Night, where anyone could watch the band perform their whole show before their final competition. It was the culmination of many frustrating developments.
“We’ve all been wanting to just get on the field and rehearse, but we were never able to,” said senior saxophone, Jalen Gutierrez.
But hope was not lost. To recover the lost time, the band directors made plans early in the week to have a rehearsal at a school in Bakersfield, near the area of the competition. The expectation was the air might be clearer away from the coast.
Upon arriving at the borrowed field a nearby school graciously lent them, the band immediately began practicing and catching up to their previous level of excellence, but the air seemed to be getting bad again. The rehearsal went on and students tried their best to recover and perform at their highest level. Some members wore breathing masks to stay in the rehearsal. Eventually, the rehearsal was cut short once more from a combination of the dust and the smoke coming from the northern part of California that further contaminated the air.
Still, the students kept optimistic and stayed in Bakersfield for the night to await the WBA preliminary performance the next day. Unfortunately, despite their optimism and all the hardships of their practices, the competition had to be called off as a result of the dangerous air quality.
It was a disastrous week and for many of the seniors a colossal disappointment. However, the clearer skies this week have given way for the band to finally host their Friends and Family Night, where the band is performing their show for the final time this year.
“These adverse situations brought many problems,” band director Patrick Refsnider said. “…but we’ll show that we’re going to come back…and better than before.”
The event will be free of charge and the Food Truck Mafia will be at the event. In contrast from other years where the band had to perform a few more shows, this time they don’t have to hold anything back.
The event will be from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. and the band’s performance will start around 8 p.m. at the Logan stadium through the front entrance.
