Lake Braddock Marching Band 1985 BoA

Under the direction of Carl Bly, this is the finals of the Bands of America in 1985. Sorry the video is a little weak, that first note we played though...

[@jennifertricarico6546]

Just watched this again with my eldest son. He was messing around on our piano with Funny Valentine, then suddenly started playing Favorite Things. I became pretty nostalgic for my awesome high school band days thanks to those two tunes, and had to show him his mother on the bass drum. Ha! I think we were able to find Kris (now his aunt/my sis-in-law) and many other precious friends. This was a POWERFUL performance and a huge life lesson. Yes, they placed us tied for 11th out of 12 bands, from what I remember. But we marched off that field and out of that stadium with our heads held high. Cathy Dooley's tears - trumpet player closeup after the last note and just before we marched off the field - show just how much everyone gave to that performance. Carl Bly, our amazing director, was and is a man of excellence. So grateful to have had the opportunity to play with these folks. I'll stop... THANKS, Bryan, for posting this! Blessings, Everyone!

[@marcitreece8918]

Carl Bly's amazing legacy. Fantastic show!!

[@amincespedes3132]

This is high school and look like professional

[@WDJeff]

I remember being in awe of them when I was marching in high school in the mid 80's.

[@clarihorn2]

When I was in high school in Henrico County, Virginia in the 1970's, JR Tucker High School had the band to beat all bands!! Every year, Tucker HS had phenomenal bands.... Carl Bly was the band director here then... he was an incredible band director!!

[@gregeklund1251]

Thanks Bryan, such fun to see again. I tend to remember some of the meme era of the winning band (who played three blind mice as their big number) offering their winner medals to some of us.

[@thehealingroad8993]

Holy crap that horn line is insane!!! This is junior corps quality performing! Wow!

[@seanallbee9788]

Thank you so much for sharing this performance! It was a real trip down memory lane, and fun to try to pick people out. If only we had HD back in the mid 80's!

[@YouTubeCatEngineer]

Fantastic upload Bryan. So much fun to watch this. Thanks for posting.

[@ericahosken1662]

Wow, really impressive!

[@knoksisbutbetter]

That's me at 4:46 with the silver euphonium behind the marimba!

[@mattjenson766]

For those that are interested, I just uploaded two related videos to KZbin: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hGW8lKqlZayImsk - 1985 BoA preliminary competition from the day before this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZorKgmNsfNKkfZI - from a competition early in the 1986 season Unfortunately, the video quality isn't great on either of them because the VHS tapes were in storage for about 3 decades before being digitized. But, no one else has uploaded a video for either yet, so I guess they're better than nothing.

[@knoksisbutbetter]

This was an awesome experience, though I remember we tied for eleventh or something.

[@Gwyndall]

That's when we truly learned that life isn't fair. :(

[@c_scott934]

I thought 8 bands made finals and we tied for last out of those. Maybe it was 12. Been a while. Loved watching though

[@weskautzmann4315]

Right. 11th. We were stunned by that, but now it’s good to recall the actual performance after how hard we had worked, and the ovation we received. I still get goose bumps hearing that massive wall of sound after Karla counts off “1 and 2 and 3 and BREEEATHE!”

[@Themicrocheeze]

So their uniforms did look like the bridgemens