Nights with the Band

Just one of the delights of the community where I reside is having the capability to just simply walk down the street for a superb totally free evening of superb music by our Municipal Band. This band has been in existance for 101 years, the longest on-going Municipal Band in the country. The music director and conductor Larry has been doing his thing for the band for just over eighteen years at this point, and I have seen nearly every presentation he has been taking part in during those years. So of course it is understandable if I am feeling sad right now to learn that our city just cannot afford to keep going with the band and this year is the final performance for our annual Summer Music Concert Series.

In our town we have a variety of free music, free movies on the beach and plenty of little free rock concerts that take place all summer. But probably none of these compare with the attendance at the Municipal Band Concerts. They are very popular, with overflow crowds’ at all four large city parks where they hold them. In fact, it is so congested that I have been doing what more and more in our town do on concert day. I have been venturing out to the park right off the bat in the morning to stake out my spot on the lawn with a blanket and chair to mark my spot until I return in the evening. I guess it shows something good about our town that fifty people can abandon their chairs and blankets seated on a lawn all day long and they are all still there when we return to the park at 6Pm that night to take a seat and appreciate the concert.

By the time the concert starts each week, there are commonly around 200 people sitting at the lawn, almost all with picnic baskets of fantastic goodies and the ever so illegal wine to drink. I do find it funny that they always announce at the outset of each show that it is illegal to consume alcohol on park premises while everyone inside earshot of the statement is uncorking their wine bottles and pouring them into wine glasses to pass around. But no one has ever gotten rowdy, we are a rather calm group who sit and munch our cold chicken, drink our wine and listen to Star and Stripes Forever. The wildest anyone gets is when every Fourth of July show the band asks participants of the different armed forces to stand when the band plays the theme for their individual branch of the military. Some get very teary-eyed and many sing along really loudly, even if they are tone deaf. But if is very small-town and fairly sweet to see.

My girlfriend and I have been going to these concerts jointly for roughly five years now, since that time we met and came to the realization we both loved these concerts. She doesn’t always get out of work in time to be there at the beginning, so I will put the food together in the afternoon while I am writing and bring it to the park as she is closing up her store and venturing out our way. We meet in the park, with her little dog Susie securely in check, and smile at the bliss this performance brings to our lives.

So I am heartbroken to think that with next week’s performance this delightful ritual of summer in our town will be ending. The town announced last year that they would be curtailing because of tight money and when the bucket went around for contributions everybody ponied up in a major way. We raised twice the amount we normally do, but it still wasn’t enough. High schools did car washes and little old ladies organised rummage sales, but it nevertheless wasn’t enough. They discussed it for three months at town hall get togethers, but the musicians are all top performers, most of them are session artists in Hollywood studios when they aren’t at the Municipal Concert performances. Though they wanted to go down in their fees, they are all union and are not able to bring it down any further than they have. So this is the end of an era. And we will be all the poorer to be without it.

When Deni isn’t lamenting the loss of her Municipal Band, she is writing blogs about many distinct and exciting things. Some of those include a blog about how to use metal bandsaw blades correctly, the best way to build a brick retaining wall for your garden and what the real estate market is like in Monroe County in Southern Florida.