All Western Weekend

[guarddude]

This would have been the weekend for the grand daddy of all band reviews, The Long Beach All Western Band Review. It was held the weekend of Thanksgiving and marked the official end to the fall marching season for most of the bands in SO and NOR CAL. Fall 1977 was my senior year at Montgomery HS and I was the drum major. The band got 5th place and we were very happy. I later was in the BBMM and that just created a whole new set of great music making memories. Let's hear it folks. Your best (or worst) All Western memories....

[tackkjr]

Probably not that many of us around who actually have All Western memories so not so many responses lol.

I like this one. Always wondered what it sounded like and then a few years ago someone posted a video of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LbMN2iRrMs

I especially like the coda and chord at 2:25 of the video.

[percmom]

Thanks for the video. I remember marching indoors that year (as a sophomore) for Pomona High (Pomona, CA). Definitely a different but interesting experience.

[PitDad]

I also remember marching that event that year with Pomona High School as a freshman...one of my fondest memories of band! Thanks for your post and video.

[ScrapHappy]

I marched in the All Western from 1979 to 1982 with Foothill Pleasanton. We would drive down from NorCal and spend Thanksgiving in Disneyland, then Friday compete in the California Band Review in Santa Ana then the All Western on Saturday. I remember counter-marching indoors in 1981! We'd never practiced counter marching until that afternoon right before we competed and needless to say it wasn't our best showing. But it's an experience I'll always remember!

[Bandmaster]

Boy, that is the All-Western I remember the most as well. I worked at the All-Western from 1973-1981 and was in charge of the crazy formation area inside the exposition hall in 1981. Since I was doing that all day, the ONLY performance I got to see for myself was Arcadia's.

[Camaro guy]

Dave is 100% correct. The warm-up room held 4 or 5 bands in parade formation and it was a CRAZY scene. My band was in class AA so there were, besides us, Arcadia, Mt. Carmel, Antelope Valley, and maybe a couple others. All of us warming-up together playing our various marches made a wonderful cacophony of sounds. And it was LOUD in there! Too bad nobody shot a video of that warm-up room.

[Bandmaster]

The warm-up room held 4 or 5 bands in parade formation and it was a CRAZY scene.

Well, it was a little larger than that...

The hallway leading to the step-off area from the exposition hall held about 4 bands or so, but the exposition hall, of which we were using only half, held over 16 bands at one time. I had to figure out how to cycle the bands through there in a way as to not give an advantage to any one band and keep quite zone next to the dividing wall that separated our half of the hall from the other. Which at the time was being used for Cat Show. Yes, hundreds of little furry felions trying to scratch the judges if a band's drum section played while lined up next to that dividing wall.

[RN,oldfluteplayer]

I marched in All Western from 1966 -70 with the El Cajon Valley Blue Ribbon Marching Band. It really was a band then and we always did pretty well, at least third place. I have newspaper articles about All Western in my band scrapbook. I remember plastic bread bags over my white shoes, having my long hair stuffed up in my hat, getting my head jabbed by band moms with rat tail combs, and lots of hairspray. We did one indoor comp due to rain. We had lots of practice with countermarches because of the size of our practice street.
Countermarching was dangerous because the tenor drum players twirled their sticks (on long cords) during competition. They only played for the roll off.
We always changed into dress up clothing for a fancy sit down dinner inbetween the comp and the awards. Dresses and panty hose on a smelly sweaty body. We were not a sweet smelling bunch of 80 - some kids.
It was always a great experience.

[JLGORMAN]

One of may favorite recollections of All Western was during the 1973 competition. I had flown back from Washington DC to be with Ross Davis and the Anaheim Colonist Band. The Band that fall was playing Barnum and Baileys Favorite for their competitin march. All Western was a big event for Anaheim and if you were with the Band it was expected that Coats and Ties would be worn. We were all given carnations which were affixed to the 14 inch High Shakos of Band Members and to the lapels of everyone else, to include Bands Parents and supporters. That year the Band in front of us in the lineup was Glen A. Wilson which was also playing Barnum and Baileys Favorite. Ross was not that impressed with their rendition. He than did something he was sort of famous for in that he stepped off each rank of the Band playing from the beginning through the end of the first strain of the march. He did this to let Wilsons Band Members see that all his musicians could play the march the way he liked it. After the Review(we beat Wilson like a Drum) several of their Band Members came up to us and said that we intimidated them during the warmup period. Ross Davis would never do that(right Vore). And we always dressed up after the Parade for dinner before going back to the Arena. Truly the best competition at the time.

[vore]

Yes, Ross did that a few times while at Anaheim HS and Azusa HS.

vore

[Timbob]

wow-Great Band Review...I remember 1970 indoors...the warm-up area where other bands were around (above?) us....we showed off...the other bands were in awe....then in competition, the bagpipes played Scotland the Brave when we were done playing the march...and we almost got penalized for it..but we won Sweepstakes in a tie with Loara.Glendora band, btw.....

[Peter Baird]

Dave,

Do you remember which year it was that during the BBMM exhibition before awards the sousaphones came out front and played the piccolo part to Stars and Stripes? I think it was 1976, but it could have been 1975.

By a bizarre coincidence I accidentally played that recording on my iPod yesterday while looking for the Blue Devils DCI 1976 recording. I was immediately transported back 37 (?!!) years and thunderstruck by the crowd going absolutely berserk when we finished playing. And then I remembered that the Gold Dusters were out there as well, so it's possible the cheering was for them (remember Alix Plum?) and while Gary Horimoto was a great section leader, sexy? Not so much...

In any event I'm as proud of that performance today as I am of anything I've done since. It was a heckuva band, and we even made those stupid fiberglas horns sound decent.

I know this is a thread about All Western, but the truth is I always hated parades. Give me a field show any day--like maybe circa 1974 Rick Marino's Loara, Danny Wagner's Los Altos, or...

Peter

[Bandmaster]

Dave,

Do you remember which year it was that during the BBMM exhibition before awards the sousaphones came out front and played the piccolo part to Stars and Stripes? I think it was 1976, but it could have been 1975.

It was 1975 Peter, I know because I was in the BBMM in the fall of 1976 and I never got to play Stars and Stripes, Gary didn't march in the band that semester and we had 18 tubas that year, not 12.

Me... I like parades AND field shows! They both have great educational value. Plus there are some parades that will actually pay you to show show up and march down the street.

P.S. - Hey Peter... I still remember Ice Cream!

[JCYS]

I watched the BBMM do All Western in 73(?)..one of the reasons I went there starting in 74, and I think we performed there 3 times (I think) while I was in the group...and when I became a teacher and brought my band to the last All Western in 83, CSULB performed then too.

My least favorite was the All Western "Bolero" show which I did with a bad case of the flu and a 102 fever...yuch.