Music Dept: Battle Of The Bands

On Sunday March 10th, Hatch End High School participated in its first inter-school “Battle of the Bands” at Harrow Arts Centre. The “Schools Rock 4 Barnet, Brent and Harrow” was organised by Adrian Needley, Chief Inspector for Neighbourhood Policing in the three boroughs, who invited all high schools to enter a band into the competition. A total of 90 schools were invited to the concert, with Hatch End High sending its newly created band “Souled Out”. They arrived at 11.00 a.m. for a sound-check and to be able to see what the other schools would be playing. It became clear that we were the only school who had a mixture of year groups in our band (7-11), with most schools selecting students from Years 10 -13.

After everyone had done a sound-check and got a feel for the venue, the concert began with a band of policeman who performed songs about knife crime. Our band played second in the running order: Solomon Goddard (vocals), Henry North (guitar), Archie Brookes (piano), Dipen Mandalia (bass), Ethan Roberts (drums), Landon Li (trumpet), Ben Whaley (trumpet) and Thomas Farrar (Sax), who proceeded to impress the audience with their upbeat and soulful covers of the classic songs ‘I Feel Good’ by James Brown and ‘Proud Mary’ by Tina Turner. The judges gave them excellent feedback, praising their musicality and skill.

We then watched as the other schools performed and, despite our limited experience in this type of competition, felt that we had a chance of doing well. After everyone had played, the audience then got to vote on their favourites before the winners were revealed. Our band was placed second overall, showing that they had impressed both the judges and the audience. This was a fantastic achievement, and the boys involved really did the music department and their school proud.

Mr Cottle Head of Department