800 Marching Band Performers Take Over Homestead High Field Saturday

Raise the baton and forward march it to Homestead High School Saturday night if tubas and drum majors are your thing because 800 high school marching band members will take the field at 7 p.m. for a marching band exhibition.

"It's a noncompetitive event. The whole purpose is for the kids to see each other perform," says Joseph Kelly, band director of Fremont High School. "It's a chance for them to show off to friends and family."

All five high schools from the Fremont Union High School District–which includes Homestead High, the only western band selected for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade–plus Santa Teresa High School in San Jose will perform twice on Oct. 1—first at 4 p.m. just for one another, then again at 7 p.m. for the paying audience. (At $5 a ticket—free for those 5 and under—the show's a steal.)

Between performances Kelly says the bands will share a meal and, hopefully, conversation.

"They will be commended to mingle," he says.

It's rare for competitive marching bands to see one another perform, Kelly says, which is why this annual performance was started nine years go. In competitions the largest-in-number band performs last so for the exhibition they rotate the finale in alphabetical order.

"Performing last–there's something really cool about that," Kelly says.

Some of the themes expected for the evening include "Phantom of the Opera" by Cupertino High; music from "Tron" from Lynbrook High; a "dark" bit, Kelly says, from Angels in the Architecture will come from Homestead High with more darkness and what he called "macabre, a dark creepy music show" from his school, Fremont High. (Just in time to get in the spirit of Halloween.)

What it all boils down to, he says, "Performance is the goal."