The Perilous Ballad of the Halloween Dance Band

While the dance band on the Titanic had a far more dramatic narrative and plot resolution than we ever did, the story of the Halloween Dance band did involve, to our credit, far more sirens and helicopters than the Titanic ever did— and unlike the Titanic band, we had a getaway car. Though we lived to tell the tale, it was a process worthy of a made-for-TV sob story montage that played over our slow dance repertoire.

When we were approached by Student Government about being the unpaid musical guest at the Halloween Dance, we immediately accepted. Perhaps it was because one of our members was romantically attached to a member of Student Government, or because we wanted to bask in the adulation of 120 apathetic high school students, but we had compiled a setlist shortly after and began practicing intensely, sometimes as much as twice a month.

The first hiccup came on a Friday afternoon, a week before October 28th. About a dozen STEM rejects had gathered in 104 for solfege and songwriting when a rather indignant high school president informed the class that both the girls’ and boys’ soccer championships had been scheduled for the evening of the dance. Feigning disappointment but secretly relieved that we would not have to perform with our setlist of exactly one and a half songs, the dance band agreed to seize the gift of time that had been presented to us in a not-so-neatly wrapped Google Calendar box.

So, we put down our instruments and went home, only to find out that the soccer teams, despite their valiant last stands, were not victorious. Ultimately, this lose-lose situation led to the Halloween Dance being postponed until well past Halloween and the removal of some spooky music from the setlist.

At long last, the day of the second dance arrived. We all swore a blood oath with Ms. Neu to borrow her equipment for the night. If anything was broken or missing, one finger for each piece of equipment would be plucked off from each of us and turned into oboes. At the time, this seemed extreme, but in the light of budget cuts and the cheerful state of public school music programs, this strikes us as fairly reasonable. With that, we spent every shred of our energy hauling the equipment up to the roof. The process was rather rushed, as we had been delayed by a lockdown drill: one we did not realize was a harbinger of much misfortune to come.

For some unknown number of hours, the dance band played through several soundchecks until we were certain that we could be heard from New Jersey. Suddenly, another noise cut through our harmonious racket— sirens! Then helicopters, and more sirens, and a storm of texts, coming in our general direction. Flattered by what we were initially sure was an incredibly determined flash mob, we were unaware that we had played through a genuine active shooter drill. Finally, a cell phone rang. With our nerves shook and our brains rattled by confusion (and early-onset tinnitus), we held the speakerphone up to the microphone stand that had already begun to collapse, probably in defeat. Due to an incident on the Broad Street Line, the dance was canceled yet again: permanently this time. All of our collective schlepping was for naught.

At that moment, a member of the climate staff came through the door wielding a table.

“Wait!” we cried. “The dance is called off!”

They looked at us very confused, as if we were the only ones in the school to know— and sure enough, we were. Not long after, the loudspeaker told us what we already knew, and we took the liberty of bringing all the amps and speakers back downstairs, surprising the Office that did not know we were even in the building.

Under the glare of searchlights, we piled into our clown car/tour bus/getaway vehicle and have not touched our instruments since in remembrance of the travails of that day of infamy.

All bands have their ups and downs, their hit years and dry spells. For us, though we might have only played ⅔ times for a real audience, the real high points were the friends we made along the way (and the low point was being our own roadies.) Throughout our band’s adventures, we played for empty rooms, surprisingly enthusiastic portrait photographers, custodians, a random tenth-grader, and Mr. Tannen, who was confused as to why we were in his room during his prep period. Perhaps someday, we will play for a paying crowd. But until then, we will remain forevermore, in spirit and probable actuality, the Halloween Dance band.