British Open

Today, Tim played in the British Open Brass Band Championships at Symphony Hall, Birmingham.  Overall the band came in twelfth out of eighteen - not bad when the eighteen are the seventeen best bands in the country plus one of the best European bands (from Lucerne in Switzerland).

Brass band contests are weird.  Eighteen bands turn up, and one after the other they play the same 16ish minute piece that they've been rehearsing for the last three weeks.  Three blokes sit in a tent so they can't see who is on stage and then they rank the bands in order from top to bottom.  

The contest started at 10.30am in the morning.  This photo was taken just before the results were announced, which was at about 7.30pm - a long day!  There were a few mishaps along the way today, including someone from a different band who forgot their mutes (we let them borrow ours) and a timpanist from one band managing to break a timp head mid-performance.  The contest way delayed by half an hour whilst a replacement timp was found.  An hour or so later the original drum came back on with a new head fitted.

I had a great day - we were hoping to come in a little higher than twelfth, but in this company that's not too bad!  We get to have another go in September next year.