Christmas Band Concert

Tonight was the winter concert for the middle school bands. Lance was really needed at the church, so he and Josh spent the evening there and I had Cole and Tess. Not optimal, but oh well. We got to the school a good 20 minutes early to discover one last parking spot and no empty seats in the gym. I was able to wrangle a few extra folding chairs, thank goodness, because standing for an hour with those to kids of mine? Not an option.

Cole and Tess were about what you would expect a 7 year old boy and 5 year old girl to be at an extra-crowded middle school band concert - not very well behaved. Before we left I had told them to get some books and toys to take. But did they do this? No. Cole had nothing and Tess had 2 Minion finger puppets and a plastic fly. Apparently I still need to be more of a supervisor when it comes to stuff like this. Fortunately, I had come armed with bribery candy, so all was not lost. It wasn't fun; Cole was a punk. But we survived.

And the music? It was pretty awesome, actually! Spencer is in Wind Ensemble, which is generally the 8th grade band. (He's only in 7th.) He also tried out for and made the Jazz Band, which is the best band to be in. He plays the saxophone and piano for that.

So here are some clips from all of the songs he played. I didn't record the entirety of the songs because they're kinda long and I generally had to stop recording to get after one of my two little imps. I tried recording Cole and Tess, but they were just punks about it.

Oh, and here's the two little sections in the program that included Spencer - they ran out of programs and I had to borrow one from a nice lady for a minute. (Cole was very offended when I gave the program back to her - he had every intention of stealing it and made his plan known. Loudly.) ((I wish I were kidding.))

Apparently Spencer was playing the piano for this one, but I was in such bad seating I couldn't see him and didn't know. (I would have recorded more had I known!)

Spencer has a solo at the end of this song!

This one includes punkish Cole and grouchy Tess.

Another solo by Spencer.

The first Wind Ensemble song - we were so far away there was no way to know where Spencer was.

For the last song they played "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch", which was actually their best song, but YouTube is being weird and won't upload or publish it. Dang. (Grandparents, if you really want it I can email it to you.)

Despite the crowded conditions and the punkish children, I'm glad I went. You did a great job, Spencer! I'm proud of you!