The Gilmer High School Marching Band swept an invitational competition in Carroll County last weekend.
David Wiebers, GHS band director, said the marching band finished with top honors, and then some, at the Bowdon Invitational held Saturday at Bowdon High School.
“Our band placed first overall, and we were crowned grand champions. Our drum majors took first overall and were named grand champion drum majors,” said Wiebers.
“The band performed extremely well and received straight 1s in every category. Our drum majors, percussion color guard and the band, as a whole, all got straight 1s. We also won our class division,” he continued. “Just like in football, we’re kind of graded by how big we are. Out of Class 3A, we came in first overall. Our drum majors also placed first in class 3A.”
The 103-member GHS band competed against eight other high school bands from across Georgia at the competition, Wiebers noted. They performed their current halftime program, “The Upside Down,” a mix of ‘80s music inspired by the hit Netflix show Stranger Things.
“We’ve got a very cutting edge show with about 97 pages of drills and visual design they had to learn, in addition to all of the music they had to add to that. There’s a lot of work put into it,” Wiebers said.
“The judges have a whole list of criteria including our music and visuals, how we march and our overall general effect. Was it an exciting show? Were we conveying the message of the show, and did they understand it?”
Wiebers said some of the marching band’s seniors were also in the band when it claimed the grand championship at the Bowdon competition five years ago.
“Some of our seniors marched in their eighth grade year. We’re really excited they could start and end their marching band careers as grand champions of that same contest,” he added.
Although 2020 offered limited opportunities for competitions and public performances, the marching band is making up for lost time this year.
“We really strive to do well at each of the contests we go to. We want to make sure we’re the best band in the land if we can,” Wiebers said. “Last year, we did a couple of different contests, but this was probably the first real contest they’ve had since the shutdown. For our freshmen and sophomores, it was really the first time they’d gone head to head with bands that weren’t affected by being shut down or COVID or anything like that.”
Next up is a regional competition, the US Bands Southern States Championships, which will be held in November at the UTC campus in Chattanooga.
Wiebers said high school bands from Tennessee, South Carolina and Alabama have also registered to compete.
So far, GHS is the only Georgia band registered, he noted.
“We’ll be representing the entire state in this one,” Wiebers said. “We’ve been to a lot of smaller competitions, but this will be our first step into more of a national arena. That’s something a lot of the kids and parents wanted to see, so that’s the direction we’re going in. We’re setting our sights on that competition and just continuing to improve every time we’re on the field.”