For the first time in school history, the band will be performing spirit shows at halftime in which they will be performing pop songs instead of their traditional competition tunes.

“In the past, every time we would play something to engage with the crowd, it’s often been old music from maybe the 70’s or the 80’s and it’s a lot more traditional, but this year the directors have taken the initiative to try and get us to interact with the crowd a little more,” senior Chris Yu said. “This year, it’s going to be a super simple halftime show and it’s more for the audience because we’re going to play new music.”

With an earlier start to the school year than previous years, the Spirit Shows give the band more time to prepare their competition tunes while engaging the audience.

“First and foremost, it’s a little bit more crowd pleasing, a little bit more audience appreciative,” band director Jamie Weaver said. “Also, because the schedule for school started so much earlier this year and our rehearsal time was down by doing three weeks, spirit show basically gives us about three more weeks of preparing the competition show before we go out.”

Senior Patrick Lin anticipates an interactive show, with the audience joining in throughout the performance.  

“You can expect a lot of hype, we’re trying to get the crowd pumped up and bring everybody together to get them excited,” Lin said. “I think the audience will join in on the fun, they’ll probably clap, maybe some of them will dance.”

With this being the first year of Spirit Shows, band members have had to learn to a new, more relaxed way of rehearsing for the performances.

“In the past it’s always been very rigid for marching and very direct so now it’s kind of more natural,” Yu said. “With the Spirit Shows, we are trying new dynamics, like our directors are telling us ‘just stand there and jam out’ to just move around and which is really interesting.”

Ultimately, Weaver looks forward to the performances as they involve all members of the band in multiple halftime shows.

“It gives the opportunity for every student to participate in a marching spot whereas before with the competitive show, not everybody is on the field and they have different roles and so this way everybody gets the opportunity,” Weaver said. “My favorite part really is being able to look at every kid and say, six out of the 10 games you are going, because we’re doing the first three and the last three, to perform regardless of whether or not you’re in the competitive performance or not.”