‘Golden Hour’ comes to life in rain, heat

A little insomnia can be a good thing. Especially if you are trying to come up with a theme for the Elmore County High School Maroon Machine Marching Band halftime show.

It is exactly how ‘Golden Hour’ came to life for band director Dallas Hammond back in December.

“I had an entirely different show planned out,” Hammond said. “Then one night I could not fall asleep and ‘Talking to the Moon’ by Bruno Mars was stuck in my head.”

Hammond pulled out her phone and opened the notes application about 1 a.m and typed in ‘Talking to the Moon.’

“Then I thought about other songs that were just kind of moon, sun, space related,” Hammond said. “I typed the whole thing out and I came up with the entire show in a five minute spam book, just because I had to brain dump to go to bed.”

The show starts with “Golden Hour” with representations of the sun and moon in an eclipse at midfield. They then part. Soloists become the audible representations of the sun and moon and “talk to each other.”

“It is sort of like a forbidden love story between the sun and the moon,” Hammond said. “They're always trying to get back to each other.”

The half-time show includes “Mr. Brightside”, “Talking to the Moon”, One Republic’s “Counting Stars”, and then will finish out with a different version of “Golden Hour”. Hammond said band camp and the show can’t be done by herself. She said a team of staff and volunteers helps not only during band camp but throughout the year and during marching season as the band works to perfect and tweak the show.

Just as plans changed for the Maroon Machine show on a whim, so did band camp on the Sunday night before it started.

“Our practice field flooded the night before band camp,” Hammond said Friday night. “We couldn't paint our lines on the field. It's still flooded right now because it didn't drain.”

Hammond worked it out with football to use the new turf field at Burt-Haynie Field. They dodged each other on the field. 

“We're out here in the morning for the first half where we get half the field and football has the other half,” Hammond said. “It pushes us back in setting our drill.”

The band took an extended break on Wednesday to allow the football team and cheerleaders time for photographs for the football program. Other issues arose in putting in drill. The band normally puts about eight to 12 sets of new drill per day during the week of band camp. But the band and staff persevered on Thursday.

“In one day the kids learned new music, memorized the music, learned the new drill, and put new music to the new drill in one day with two separate songs,” Hammond said. “It's about 18 sets on the field, which is a lot.”

The intensive five day week helps the band become a close and cohesive unit. Hammond told her band extracurricular means they have to do extra work and put in extra time. Along the way the band members find friends they will keep for a lifetime.

“They learn time management and retention,” Hammond said. “We have to expand our attention spans. The long days and week create camaraderie and bonding. You spend 60 hours with these people, you're going to become close, you're going to become family. I think that's one of our biggest takeaways, is knowing we have challenges, we meet them and through hard work overcome them.”