Sarawak State Marching Band Competition 2009

Went to see Sarawak State Marching Band Competition 2009 this morning with my buddy Chun. The competition was held at Sekolah Kebangsaan S.E.D.C Sibu near Grand Height, Jalan Lanang.

[Sekolah Kebangsaan SEDC Sibu - venue for the competition]

I believe not many have heard about this school before even the local. So am I until one of my friend joined the school as a teacher. So, why it was chosen as the venue to the state level competition? From what I heard, the technical personnel had actually survey few places in Sibu, but this is the only place have the flattest ground that qualify for this kind of competition.

[One of the team performing at the time we reached the venue]

There were 8 teams in total taking part in this competition and at the time we reached there at around 10am, it was already the 5th team doing their performance. We were only allowed to take our seats after this team completed their performance because worried our movement might disturb their performance.

[Part of the audience]

We had been waited for about half an hour before the next team slowly marching into the field. If not mistaken, it was Tung Hua Secondary School Sibu Chung Hwa Secondary School Miri. Their uniform were smart and gorgeous especially the hat they were wearing! Personally I like that because it gave me the feel of trojans!

[Marching in leading by drum majors]

From my observation, each team was leaded by 2 drum majors where one of them went onto a small platform at the front to be the conductor and the other one would show his mace throwing and spinning skills! All these performance were counted into the marking.

[Stand steadily for performance]

[The team was performing with their formation and marching]

I just knew that marching band competition is not just all about musical band. There are non-musical group called color guard that provides additional visual effects to the performance. The color guards dancing and playing around with various kind of flags they brought to make the performance more colorful an watchable.

[These are color guards]

[Color guards added visual effects to the performance]

A cameraman from Bahagian Teknologi Pendidikan was there to record the whole event!

[The cameraman from BTP recording the event]

The last team performing was St. Joseph (Kuching) High School Marching Band, a national level award winning team! They marched in steadily with their favorite green color uniform.

[St. Joseph High School team marching in leading by a football-match-referee-look drum major]

The team was very experience and creative. They broke the tradition by wearing their drum major as a football match referee carrying a football in his hand and their color guards were wearing football jersey!

[Trust me! This is not a football match and those wearing yellow-red jersey is not Selangor footabll team!]

The team had a lot of supporters cheering and shouting for them. As expected, their performance was great. Just like what I told you just now, this is a national level competition award winning team!

[St Joseph Kuching making their performance with "football match referee" as conductor]

[Combination of musical band and color guards]

[Color guards showing off their flag spinning skills]

As a whole, it was great to watch but it will be more watchable if the audience have higher place to sit because only by then we can really see the beauty of their formation and arrangement instead of just enjoying the nice music and their marching.

Here is the result I got it from Voteband.net
1st: St. Joseph, Kuching
2nd: Chung Hwa, Miri
3rd: St. Joseph, Miri

Best Percussion: St. Joseph, Miri
Best Color Guard: St. Joseph , Kuching
Best Drum Major: Riam Road Middle School, Miri
Best Preparation:Chung Hwa, Miri


Specially thanks Chun for the ride, otherwise I would miss the chance to see the great show!