Great Job at the "Friday Night Lights"

It is very difficult making the call with the rain.  It is the hardest job for any band director. You will get people angry if you go out in the rain, you will get people upset if you don't go out and it clears up.  The situation is further complicated by the fact that the field clears off and drains in about 10 minutes.  So we really had to stay to see if the rain would stop.  In addition, we have not been on the practice field in 9 days, a huge amount of time in the middle of the season.  If it rains this Wednesday, October 19th, we would be going to perform at Newsday without performing the show outside for 15 days!  So this was a difficult situation to say the least. At 7:30 we brought the band out to no rain but then at about 8pm it started to rain, borderline time to go inside.  Luckily, it lightened up a bit when we finally went on.  We got the run through in, and the band looked and sounded great!  This was very very important and we got it done.  Thanks to everyone for being so understanding with the inevitable confusion and for being a great team! The parents were amazing, drying off the instruments and putting them back into the trailer. We also made the necessary Newsday show adjustments.  We needed to get 45 seconds off the show.  With the Newsday rule of 10 minutes on the field, we were way too close with the 9:50 we have been running with the show.  Making the adjustments, we got it down to 9 minutes last night, perfect for the Newsday show.  The Newsday announcer makes an announcement, which will be as we enter the field, then Lindsay will talk over the band playing in the opening to set up the show, a few phrases which describes what is going on. In competition that introduction by Lindsay will be during the pre-game, which is that time when the band is first on the field, playing around.  We have 13 minutes total in the Competition environment so we can let the band play without the "set up phrases" covering up the music.  We also need the special announcement by the Newsday announcer because it sets up how great we are to everyone, reading our accomplishments and getting the attention of all the camera people on hand so that we get some good coverage.  Many bands at Newsday do not have a resume to talk about and those that do don't think about putting that in the announcement.  Last year the MSG Varsity crew put us as the second to last band in the entire telecast and said the phrase "And now from the best, to the biggest" between us and Northport.  The announcement helps facilitate this as well as the fact that we have a very entertaining show.  Great job to the band last night!  And thanks to everyone who helped and for being understanding with the rain.