The National Championships of Great Britain is one of the biggest and most loved events in the Brass Band Calendar. With just the top bands from each area qualifying for this event at the 'Regional Qualifying Stages' in March. It always shows banding at the highest quality from around the UK.
Having qualified for this event no less than eight times since 1997, the Aveley and Newham Band were under know illusion about the difficulty of 'holding their own' at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington and knew what the weeks of preparation would entail.
The test piece for the 2007 contest was 'Music for Battle Creek' by Philip Sparke. The general feeling around the seats in the Band was that the technical and musical difficulty of this piece would certainly separate the bands on the contest stage and that only the top bands would really do it justice. We did however feel that with perseverance and hard work, we could be placed amongst the top bands and come away from the Albert Hall with a decent result.
The day began with an early rehearsal at the local Army Barracks. With the Leyland Band and The Grimethorpe Colliery Band rehearsing on either side of us, we may have had the chance to preview some of the stronger competition at the event but instead decided to knuckle down and make our final preparations our performance.
The news of the draw came soon after and the band were relieved with a favourable no '5'. On stage, we felt that we pulled off a Solid (if slightly nervous) performance with the soloists shining throughout. Minor blemishes and cracks did however appear which unfortunately lost us points and left us placed 14th at the end of the day. Grimethorpe Colliery were the eventual winners with Fodens Richardson and The Cory Band taking second and Third place respectively.
The band always enjoy attending this major event in their home region and very much look forward to having the chance of qualification again for 2008.