My Very Liberal Co Worker Wouldn't Believe me That the School Band Kids in the Tents Wasn't a Parody. Here's Their Story.

The Wenatchee High School bands’ performance space has gained wide attention not only within the city of Wenatchee, Washington, but nationwide, reaching outlets from the BBC to Jimmy Kimmel Live! The photos—including one of a student crammed inside his small tent with a sousaphone, which couldn’t be comfortable—have led some observers to speculate that these kids were forced into this situation and that this is surely a sign of the apocalypse.

As a former high school sousaphone and tuba player, I wanted to hear from the band kids themselves. So I reached out to the high school’s band conductor, who put me in touch with two of his students: Lars Sorom, a 16-year-old junior, and Henry Bergey, a 15-year-old sophomore.


One of my colleagues had an interesting question: Obviously, the culture is full of weird band stereotypes, like the whole “band geeks” thing, which really wasn’t much of a thing even when I was in high school. But I’m curious, how has this moment affected perception of the band among the larger student body?

"Sorom: Dude, I have got to say, there’s a lot of people that are like, “Oh my gosh, that’s my school.” But I’m like, “Can you really say that? I mean, you dropped band in third grade.” It’s so cool, but what I’m hoping is that we’ll get a whole bunch of freshmen next year who’ll be like, “I want to go play in the pod band, that’s so cool.” And I mean, it is really cool! I walk around the school with my head up high because I’m like, “I was on Jimmy Kimmel last night. I mean, I was in one of the green pods. That was pretty cool.”

https://imgur.com/XwbIkPm