The Lancer Marching Band packed up their instruments and headed to Salem for the annual Salem Band Show for the 24th time in their career on Oct. 7.

Each year, Salem high school holds a band show in which bands, high school and college, come to show off their skills. Londonderry has been making an appearance at the show every year since 1994.

“They are definitely a crowd-pleaser,” Band director Mr. Andy Soucy said. “Every year it seems like they are a huge attraction for the show. I bet if we didn’t go, it’d be noticed.”

Each year, the event gathers bands from all over the state, and hundreds of cheering spectators. In total, thousands of people came to witness all that the bands have to offer.

After each band performs, they march off the field and get one final chance to show the spectators what they’ve got as they march right by the stands. It not only allows the band to show off their size and or marching abilities, but to also show off their own unique cadence.

“It was a really cool experience. It was great to see all the different band performances and definitely had a big community feel to it,” freshman Amanda Curry said.

Since this is a professional band show, there are judges. While each band performs, multiple judges are on the field recording comments that they have to critique and point out problems that they see to help the bands better themselves.

“Sometimes, with all those judges walking around, I feel a lot of pressure to do well,” sophomore Chris Byrne said.

After the whole event is finished, the band gets a chance to go and listen to the judges’ comments that they made during their performance. This helps the students know what they need to work on.

“I think the Salem band show helps us all in the band and drumline grow as musicians by listening back to what the judges have to say about the performance. It’ll definitely help with our final production of the show in Pasadena this December,” Senior Brian Murphy said.

Soucy said one of his favorite parts about the band show is having the LHS kids see the other bands.

“You see, and you learn, and I think that’s really important,” Soucy said. “There is not enough time to perfect everything.”

After the Lancers finished and marched by the stands, they got a standing ovation and were cheered until the last person walked by.

“I think the kids delivered,” Soucy said. “My biggest highlight was seeing them put on a strong performance, and this was their strongest performance of the season. That on its own has a lot of gratification to it.”