by Jeremy Reyes|staff writer

Band takes the field this year with a new show and a new uniform to match – bringing home first place from Bands of America Austin.

“Band gets new uniforms on a seven year basis through the district and they supply a certain amount of money for the uniforms,” band director Alan Sharps said. “About three years ago we ended up getting an alternative set of uniforms, the type that would allow us to get new uniforms earlier in the process, so we have a new look for the band and we have ordered a certain type of uniform that is variable and can change show by show so each year we can have a different look and a basic part of the uniform can be augmented by various colors and things like that.”

The most notable differences in the new uniforms are the pants and the coloring.

“The pants are different. Last year’s uniforms had kind of a silver, lamé swirl like a candy cane swirl that went down the leg and then followed all the way up the body, all the way up to the cap on top,” Sharps said. “And this year, we have kind of an echo of that, that’s painted on an all black pant leg, so the pants are darker. This year the colors are a little brighter to go with our Brazilian rainforest theme show.”

The uniforms are meant to reflect the theme so the audience can fully experience the tone of the rainforest through the show.

“The Rainforest has all of the bright colors if you think about all the colors on the tropical birds, the Toucan, and all of the birds you would find in the Amazon jungle,” Sharps said.

Like any new uniform, the students are still adjusting to the look and feel.

“They’re very itchy and they’re a lot shinier and more exotic looking than last year’s uniforms,” band student Joey Olsson said.

The uniforms made their debut into the competition scene this year as well, the band already sweeping many competitions with more to come.

“We have a competition next week on saturday,” Olsson said.

With such a large group of students and ambitious performance goals, the band has rigorous practice in order to perfect the show.

“Personally I don’t know of any special elements to the show besides the forest and jungle theme, but the show is about eleven minutes long,” Olsson said. “[We practice] about three hours a day for the past school year and we had twelve hour practices for the entire second month of summer.”