By Jennifer Langston

Herald Writer

Two afternoons a week, Megan Eichmeier finishes a soccer game, grabs her clarinet and runs across the field to band practice.

The Kamiak High School junior says both require hours of practice a week, but winning a game isn’t as euphoric as finishing a band performance.

"I’ve gotten a better feeling from this than I do from soccer," she said Saturday, dressed in a purple and white uniform with a silver-plumed hat shortly after competing in the Puget Sound Festival of Bands.

"When you finish, the conductors are just smiling out at us. Throughout the whole band there’s this glow, this happiness," she said. "There are so many people who are together."

Everett Memorial Stadium was overrun Saturday by more than 2,300 saxophonists, drummers, color guard members and xylophonists for one of the largest high school marching band competitions in the region.

Twenty-five bands took to the field, marching in precise formations, growing and contracting like a sea anemone in the ocean. They played pieces from Elton John to Shostakovich.

They covered parking lots with buses and moving vans. They hauled tympanis and gongs to the stadium with adapted riding lawnmowers.

The festival, now in its 14th year, is organized by volunteers, parents and band boosters from Cascade High School in Everett.

Band members like to joke that football is just something that happens around halftime. Saturday, everybody in the stadium stands — from parents wearing jackets embroidered with "Band Mom" to football players themselves — was there just to watch them.

The competition is serious. Drum sections for many marching bands have been practicing since midsummer.

Before taking the field, they train their eyes and "try to burn a hole" into the person’s head in front of them, honing the laserlike focus they’ll need to put the music together with the complicated choreography.

"At football games you can hear people talking to each other in the stands while we play," said Kevin Belford, a senior and snare drum player for the Mariner Marching Band from Everett. "I’m glad we get to compete because people listen to us. … We get respect."

He and junior Erin Easley were wearing T-shirts under their coats they had specially made. They say "Mo Band Geeks," and they wear them with pride.

Easley, who started playing the cello in the fourth grade, has picked up almost every instrument in a marching band over the years. Now she doubles playing the sousaphone and in the percussion section.

When she grows up, she wants to be a band director herself.

"Music is my life," she said. "The very first note I played I said, ‘Wow, music is what I want to do.’ "

Kelly Clay, a senior at Kamiak High School in Mukilteo, said she moved here from Wisconsin in the middle of the eighth grade. But she didn’t really find a stable group of friends until she joined the color guard.

A year later, she put down her flag and picked up the clarinet.

"I saw from the outside that it was this huge family, and I wanted to be a part of that family," she said. "I met people that got me through my freshman year."

She said unlike television movies, which always portray band kids as fat, wobbly and acne-prone, the Kamiak Show Band is as diverse as the school. Some people are shy, some are state-ranked cross country runners, some play football, some just love music.

Peter Cho, a Kamiak senior and assistant drum major, said there’s a lot of responsibility involved. He leads the 190 musicians on and off the field.

He’s the first one to get to practice, the last one to leave, the one who sets the example for others. But ever since he’s joined his sophomore year, he’s loved being a part of it.

"You can’t be out there causing a ruckus with the rest of the kids," Cho said. "But basically most of my best friends are in band. Band is my life, and band is grand. "

You can call Herald Writer Jennifer Langston at 425-339-3452

or send e-mail to langston@heraldnet.com.