On the first day of school, most students could say that they slammed their snooze button in denial a couple of times that morning and sprinted out to the parking lot as soon as the final bell rang, eager to retain their clutches on any last fleeting moment of summer. But for band, summer had ended a long time ago, when on Aug. 1 band rehearsals began the incessant practicing of this year’s state show, Proxima Centauri.

“I think the show this year is going to be a lot more competitive than the one last year just because it’s a state year, which is normal for marching shows,” Bailey Olsen, junior band president, said. “I think that it has very high potential to be one of our best shows.”

The show this year, named Proxima Centauri after the closest star to our galaxy, features the orchestra suite Planets by Gustav Holts and explores the themes of space and stars, light and darkness and especially the unknown.

“It’s just really loud and really powerful and there’s all this crazy movement,” senior drill instructor Zach Burky said. “In the first set there’s like the galaxy kind of exploding into existence. The drill is cool, the sound is awesome.”

The band has to be a tight knit unit to put these pieces together, and it requires each member’s best efforts to get the show at the level it needs to be.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the best that I can be because after we won state two years ago I kind of feel that we need to uphold that legacy,” Burky said. “And it’s going to be hard- there are a lot of good bands out there, especially this year.”

To achieve this standard of excellence, practices begin the first week of August, with two weeks of eight hours of rehearsal, four being outside, continuing with one more week of outside four hour rehearsals. And then the before and after school rehearsals start.

“If I could change anything, it’s that band is such a huge time commitment and it really saps so much time from doing homework,” junior section leader Sophia Froehlich said. “That’s probably my least favorite part, going home and staying up until 2 a.m. doing homework. But I love pretty much everything else about it.”

Between rehearsals and football games, band members spend a lot of time together and on the go- and bonding over the overwhelming experience of it all.

“If you’re in band basically all of your friends are in band and you know everything about band,” Olsen said. “You really feel welcome and safe there. It’s fun to be in- the band directors make band a fun enjoyable place. It’s just a great place with great people doing a great thing.”

The band culture involves much more than just the show, the competitions, the games. In the end, the band “cult” is really just a gathering of musicians united in their love for music and art.

“The main part of band is that whatever you do competition wise the most important thing is how you feel about the show and whether or not you’re proud of the product you’ve assembled,” Burky said. “At this stage in the year I feel really good about what we’re doing and regardless of how we perform competitively it’s going be a good show. It’s going to be one that I can look back on my senior year and say that I’m proud to have been a part of.”