A Cavalcading We Will Go

Photo by Evan Brandt

Drum Majors from all 12 high school marching bands that performed at the Owen J. Roberts Cavalcade Saturday line up at the end of the night to receive their trophies.

The weather cleared nicely Saturday for the 2014 Owen J. Roberts High School Marching Band Cavalcade, although by the end of the night, the chill had settled in and many in the stands were hard to recognize, wrapped in hoods, blankets and gloves.



Fifteen different bands performed and 11 of them were in competition.

The Spring-Ford Middle School Band and the Owen J. Roberts Middle School Band both performed in exhibition only.

Sadly for you, dear reader, that was about the time the battery on my iPhone gave out and my back-up plan collapsed as well.



I had taken along my son's iPod (without his knowledge or permission I confess) with the idea that I could capture the middle school bands on that, then take my iPhone to the car to charge during intermission in order to get the full performances of the two other local bands - Boyertown and Owen J. Roberts, which, as hosts, was the third band playing in exhibition.

But it turns out the iPod just didn't have what it takes batter-wise and I could not even capture all of Spring-Ford's performance, much less Owen J. Roberts, which followed.



So the good news is, that gave me extra time to charge the iPhone. The bad news was, it still wasn't enough.

The good/good news was, the iPod had enough charge to capture some of the performance of the Kutztown University Marching Band, the fourth band to play in exhibition.



That allowed me to capture some very spirited performances which were designed especially for the high school marching bands, which sit in the visitor side of the stadium after their performance and often only see the back of the other bands.

As is often the case, the high-energy performances was well-received by the appreciative audience who know how much hard work goes into making a good marching band show.



After that came the traditional gathering of the drum majors from each of the performing bands and the announcement of the scores, and the handing out of the trophies.

Locally, Pottstown was the only band to take first place.

Photo by Evan Brandt

The trophies await awarding at Saturday's OJR Cavalcade.

However, it should be noted that Pottstown, which had performed its classic rock-themed halftime show earlier in the day at the Pottstown Vs. Boyertown football game, won its division by virtue of being the only competitor in the division.

Phoenixville, whose show explores the thin line between genius and madness, as best I could tell, scored second in the American division among three competitors.

Boyertown, which has a Hansel and Gretel show this year, took third place in the Patriot Division from among five competitors.

Photo by Evan Brandt

The stands were quite full at Hank Bernat Stadium Saturday.

Here are all the results and the scores:

Independence Division

-- East Stroudsburg North: First Place, with a score of 76.9, which also won the high auxiliary and high percussion awards
-- Cinnaminson: Second Place, with a score of 74.6

Yankee Division

-- Pottstown: First Place, with a score of 73.55, which also won the high auxiliary and high percussion awards.

American Division

-- Sun Valley: First Place, with a score of 79.95, which also won the high percussion award.

Photo by Evan Brandt

Natalie Fuertsch and Izzy Gunson
both 8th graders in OJR MS, band keep warm

-- Phoenixville: Second Place, with a score of 78.15, which also won the high auxiliary award.
-- Great Valley: Third Place, with a score of 77.3.

Patriot Division

-- Nazareth: First Place, with a score of 85.35, which also won the high auxiliary award and the overall high music and overall high score awards.
-- Downingtown West: Second Place, with a score of 82.4.
-- Boyertown: Third Place, with a score of 82.
-- Upper Darby: Fourth Place, with a score of 81.45, which also won the high percussion award.
-- Neshaminy, Fifth Place, with a score of 80.6.

Below you will find the Tweets from the cavalcade, as well as the YouTube videos of the full performances of the local bands from schools covered by The Mercury -- Pottstown, Phoenixville, Boyertown and Owen J. Roberts.

Because the Tout videos will not play here, and open a new link, I have dispensed with including them in the Storify and simple embedded them above, as you no doubt have noticed.

I remind those unfamiliar with Storify, the program I use to compile my Tweets, that you need to click on the blue "Read Next Page" bar at the end to make sure you don't miss anything.