By: Mathew Rosario
On February 4 the Eisenhower marching band and color guard went on a trip up to San Francisco for the 2023 Chinese new years parade. Hosted by Alaska Airlines the parade is broadcasted “throughout the U.S., Canada, and Asia with the help of both KTVU/Fox 2 and KTSF, Channel 26 (Chinese broadcast).” according to the parades website. The parade is meant to celebrate Chinese culture and bring in a celebration to the new year by inviting people who may not be familiar with it in a parade format they would be familiar with. The parade is filled with dancers, drummers, flag work and loud firecrackers to all celebrate this festival.
Early Friday morning these members showed up packed and ready for the long drive up California to where they would be spending the next couple of nights performing and enjoying northern California. After resting overnight the marching eagles spend the morning at San Francisco's famous pier 39 shopping and eating, enjoying all the sights and sounds of the pier before leaving to march the parade. After only 10 minutes to warm up and get ready for the big event the parade was kicked off by a large string of fire cracks signaling the start of the parade. Our eagles marching perform the songs September by earth wind and fire as well as king and queens by ava max. Moving quickly the band was able to march the whole 3 mile path in less than 45 minutes while passing through streets filled with people there to watch and enjoy the event as well as several press boxes broadcasting the event all around the world. The band was able to make it to their hotel safe and mostly dry avoiding both the rain and traffic.
The next day the band was taken to the Santa Cruz boardwalk and allowed to roam around enjoying the rides and beach there and celebrating the performance from the day before. Not being hard to miss, their green jackets and shirts displaying the Eisenhower logo could be found in every corner of the boardwalk but especially so in the arcade. Finally the next day our band took the long drive home to our campus after a long and eventful weekend traveling all around the state. Members of the eisenhower band will be performing with indoor percussion. Pace percussion has their first competition on 2/18/22 with SCPA in Rancho Cucamonga as well as on 2/25 and 2/26 with WGI in Temecula Great Oak HS