Hi Again Loyal Viewers,
I caught up with Jeff Steele - Conductor of one of Australia's finest B Grade Bands - the mighty Geelong West Brass Band. Jeff spoke with me about all-weekend rehearsals, the core band membership - and the fact that in these competitions it is really down to having a good day on the stage.
Geelong West were up in A grade over the past few years - after doing really well at both a National and State level before then. They did a tremendous amount of work, but as with most real, community based regional brass bands, they found it hard to find enough local players to really give A Grade a shake for an extended period of time. I think it's a real feather in the cap of the entire band that they kept the same core playing group and progressed right up to A Grade!
I've had the pleasure of helping them with a few concerts and contests and can vouch for the fact they're a great group of people. Jeff articulated what I think most bands secretly think before a contest... work as hard as you can then hope that you 'wing it' on the day and bring your best performance to the stage!
I hope you enjoy the interview - and good luck to Geelong West and all the B grade bands competing at the Nationals
Transcript
Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.
Loyal viewers guess what I’m here with Jeff steel from jalong West Brass Band Jeff how are you excellent yourself yeah pretty good thank you very much for asking no worries it’s a nice way to start off an interview isn’t it of course so Jeff where how many sleeps until Nationals do you know oh roughly about I don’t know 12 12 sleeps till
Nationals maybe 15 we can’t really count only conductor who knows not having any rehearsals not not so many El sleeps how’s the band going oh the go band’s going exceptionally well um we just put in a big effort over the last weekend where we did a uh a full Camp here at the band room playing over roughly about 18 hours of full brass ban you know so that was a great effort that’s everyone’s dream isn’t it 18 hours oh absolutely yeah the family love it
I’ll bet they do Jeff can you tell us what are you playing for your own choice or are you keeping that under W either way um we’re playing uh between the moon in Mexico and uh Philip spark piece it’s a great piece and um hopefully you know the band can really wing it on the day and um you know do it some great justice so yeah fingers cross
I think everyone really hopes that J long West does very very well up there inis very much um tell us a little bit is it how’s the band going is it a full band is it the struggle to get players or is it sort of everything’s coming together quite nicely we’ve we’ve we’ve like everyone else we’ve got our core members um but we’ve had to top up with some other players around the district and um we’ve done so but uh we
G up with a full compliment and uh just over 28 so I think it’s roughly about 29 brass plus percussion so about 33 on on the day excellent could be the winning combination are you going you going up there with like intention to win or is it the intention to play some good music what’s your mentality going into the competition always love to go out there and play really great music you know as long as we’re happy with that performance um
I’ll be really wrapped if we’re up in the top six you know top three would be really nice but uh yeah there’s some great bands uh up against us so you know you on the anything can happen on the day if it happens for us in terms of our performance well and good you know but it can happen for anyone really well good luck up there
I’m sure everyone watching really wishes Jong all the best for the competition we hope you play really well and thanks for having a chat with us and no worries cheers thanks
