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NEWS Corbet Accordion and Charles Watson reportsUpdated 09 February 2010 05:20:27 PM by Simon. Last weekend saw the band take part in two local parades supporting Corbet Accordion in Banbridge and Charles Watson Memorial in Clough.Friday night saw Corbet Accordion hold their annual parade. The Corbet are regular attendee's on the parade scene attending a large number of parades all over and the support they get each year is well deserved. I also thought the crowd of spectators who were on the main street was larger than in previous years with more families which is always good to see. Amongst the early starters were Legananny Accordion who are local to the Rathfriland area and were up in numbers from the last I saw them, with 16 accordions and a row of young triangle and cymbal players as well as three drummers out on parade. The band scene around Rathfriland has been improving in the past few years; with the local bands gaining more younger members and some of the local pipe bands being kitted out in new uniforms it can only be good for the area. Once the last few of our members arrived it was time to form up at Iceland and start off. A nearly full turnout of 19 drummers made the parade which was an excellent turnout and is the biggest turnout of drummers we’ve ever had for a competition parade. In the other departments we walked with 7 in the colour party, 3 drum majors, 2 bass drummers and 34 flutes. After a tune to warm up, we made our way up Kenlis Street and onto the main street. By this stage the crowds had grown at the top of the town. From the first few tunes, I thought that we were playing very well and this form continued down the main street with tunes such as Londonderry on the Foyle and Sandy Row sounding good pace and volume wise. It was a first night on parade for one of our new drummers and I thought he settled in well and it can only get easier for him in the coming weeks. At the Imperial we played the tune “Royal Flush” which I think has come on week by week. Continuing on from last weeks bad luck in the drum corp, my own side drum head split on the way back up to the Cut whilst playing Silver Hill. After a quick dash up the far side of the street I managed to find a member of Blackscull and performed a McClaren style pit change to borrow his drum and run back down to meet the band. I don’t get to stand out from the band very often and hear us playing so it was a nice change to hear us coming under the Cut playing Air Force Blue. Even though the band was still quite a distance away the power was excellent and I though the balance between drums, bass drum and flutes was even better than it sounded while walking inside the band. It was to end another good night for the band with us picking up Best Drum Corps, Blood & Thunder and junior drum major to keep our good run of form on the go. Clough was the venue on Saturday night for Charles Watson Memorial. This parade always seems to be successful each year with a good crowd lining the village with the sun shining and this year was no exception. It was another great turnout from our drummers with 18 out on parade. The flute corps numbers dropped slightly with 25 along with 2 bass drummers, 2 drum majors and 7 girls in the colour party. On the parade route there’s always the chance to meet a few bands on the street and on this occasion we met Clogher playing Number 2 March. Needless to say both bands gave it both barrels when passing each other! Once we had passed Clogher I thought it was a better idea for me to drop back into the back row of drummers so I could hear the bass drum and flutes better in single time. It was a move that paid off as I thought the pace in single time improved for the remainder of the tunes and steadied the band a bit more. We finished the parade on Sylvia’s Mother and Battleshields which capped off another good performance from the band, with Sylvia’s Mother in particular sounding better with each time its played. In the end we picked up another drum corps prize along with colour party, with Clogher picking up Blood & Thunder (these were the only prizes I heard as I had to leave straight after we finished.) This weekend see’s another two local parades with Kinallen in Dromore on Friday night and Donaghcloney on Saturday night for Blackscull Orange and Blue.
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