Bismarck Band Parade
May 15, 2010 9 Comments
I just discovered the hands down best thing about Bismarck, ND. Band Parade.
I used to always go to parades, and always for the bands. But I stopped when my son was small, and I was living in Fort Collins. You can pick from a whole list of reasons:
- Crowds of mommies whose control issues spilled all over the curb
- Drunk frat boys hauling anti-gay slogans on scarecrows as their homecoming float
- Hardly any marching bands
But in Bismarck, they’ve fixed all that. For the past 40 years, they’ve thrown a band parade where high school bands, large and small, come from all over the state to march from our Capitol to the Civic Center.
Dozens and dozens of bands, with just enough Shriners and candy-throwing politicians in between to keep the bands from drowning each other out.
My favorite, last night, was the Southwest Marching Band. Kids from the smallest towns, who generally march as little rag tag bands, unite for this one. They learn the same song in bands of as few as 4 students, then meet for the first time on the afternoon of the parade, to march, for once, as the biggest band of the day:
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I’m sorry I missed this, I love parade bands! Are those shirtsleeves I see? Did the weather finally warm up a bit?
Yes, it completely warmed up. And it’s beautiful..it doesn’t get completely dark until near 10:00pm when there are no clouds.
We would have loved to have been there! There are never enough bands in Ft. Collins parades, but the small-town bands were always the best. I loved the video, from the “uniforms,” to the line of tambourine players (I could do that!), to the bass drum player, out of step with everyone else. It’s amazing and heartening that it’s still possible to get that many teenagers to be in band and to walk in step, in ranks. Great post. Thank you!
Those uniforms are great. They chose brown and khaki because those were the only two colors that didn’t belong to any one school in the bunch.
Wow, that’s a HUGE band. You should see all the marching bands at parades in the area my sis lives in WA. Not sure why they are so popular there, but they are. Maybe it’s the proximity to several military bases?
You have to come to Loveland to see the good bands around here. I still get choked up when I think about seeing my little boy march behind the Loveland High banner for the first time.
Someday there will be a marching Samba band at a parade in FoCo:
http://www.blocoemfoco.org/Home
Sorry, can’t do much about the mommies and the frat boys.
Bring samba to FoCo parades, and you will have done plenty, Jim!
My little French village hosted an annual band fete, with silly and serious bands from all around the region. We’d sit in outdoor cafes and they’d come serenade us at each stop. My favorite of all fetes!