September 13, 2022

BIFOCALS HONOUR QUEEN WITH AIR OF DIGNITY IN FLAWLESS PERFORMANCE

GRAVENHURST — The Bifocals Band played a musical tribute to Queen Elizabeth today.

As the community band resumes rehearsals and prepares for its first gig outdoors Remembrance Day at the Royal Canadian Legion, it’s not unusual for conductor Kim Barlow to run through tunes in preparation for the memorial marking.

Some less complicated pieces require little practise.

Others take a little polishing having been away from the bandstand for a couple of years due to COVID.

One not in the latter category is God Save the Queen.

It’s a standard along with O’ Canada Nov. 11.

But when Barlow suggested the 35 brass, woodwind and percussion members play a tribute to Elizabeth II, it was as if time stood still.

Their version is not long — 14 bars and less than a minute — but the band played almost flawlessly and with a particular air of regal dignity and decorum — each note enunciated and expressed with emotive feeling.

The Queen’s is the only version of the song most of them had ever played.

And one that also sparked several memories of the late monarch, including one by Barlow about an unsuspecting American tourists bumping into Elizabeth in London and asking where she lived and if she had ever met the Queen.

After asking her to take their photo, the Elizabeth was later overheard to remark that she’d “love to be a fly on the wall” when they show the photo to friends back home.

Pam Dunlop recalled escorting 8- and 10-year-old Wolf Scouts to Gravenhurst in 1959 to see the Royal couple.

Dave Brent joked the band should play an encore: “God Save the King.”

That will have to wait for Remembrance Day.