The 2014 marching band season is underway, and students are preparing for the new season. This years theme is “Behind the Mask” and will feature the themes from Batman, Zorro, and The Incredibles.

“I think the band is off to a really nice start,” Marching band director, Mr. Ryan Arp said, “We’ve got one tune learned really well, and we are really working on the second tune.”

For the first game on Friday night, when City plays Cedar Falls, all marching band members, freshman-seniors will perform the pregame show. The band will perform Sturdy Little and The Star Spangled Banner as they always do. Then, for halftime, the sophomores, juniors, and seniors will play Batman and Zorro. The band has only let 10th-12th graders march in the halftime show since 1998. Partially because of the lack of uniforms for everyone.

“Its been like that ever since and has functioned as a way to ease 9th graders into marching without feeling overwhelmed.“ Arp said. “The music is kind of hard this year.”

The band will add The Incredibles, along with new uniforms for their remaining performances.

Luckily, the band hasn’t had to deal with extreme heat this year, as they did last year.

“This year has been great, it’s been really wet, which has been the hard thing to deal with this year.” Arp said.

The band has dealt with it well though.

“It has been progressing at a head of schedule rate,” he said. Being able to use the practice field on Saturdays is great for the band though. “We can thank really productive Saturday rehearsals,” Arp said. “Luckily, we’ve had the practice field, the practice field is great.”