March 17,2012 - St. Patrick's Day Parade Utica, NY

‘Twas a great day for the Irish!

Utica hosts the 3rd largest parade in New York State to honor St. Patrick.

The weather was perfect – clouds giving way to a warm sunshine. The people came out in droves all wearing every possible shade of green.

The Red Band joined right in. After an absence of a year we returned sporting shamrock hat bands, green beads, and glitzy-green bow ties.

Our trombone players were right in the spirit of it, Geno Brown’s was kelly green and Mark Cammarere’s was royal blue. But the highlight of our appearance was our sousa player, Paul Browne, who covered the bell of his horn with a super-sized Leprechaun! Begorrah!

We had a new march as well – “The Garry Owen March” – one of those Irish Diddle-Dee-Dee melodies that everyone recognized but you never knew the name. That along with “MacNamara’s Band” and “When The Saints Go Marching In” got the crowd clapping and cheering all along the way.

How big is Utica’s parade? Well, the cannon went off and Grand Marshall Pat Costello stepped off in front of the new roundabout at precisely 10:00am. The Red Band did not step off until almost 1½ hours later at 11:25am! We went immediately into a mob of people on Genesee St. and it continued that way for the whole length of the parade route.

The crowds had abandoned the curbside and were pushed right out into the street. Our band was lined up 4 across and that was all the width we had to march in all the way to the end.

Every man, woman, child, and dog had come out to cheer on the parade. Never was there a larger crowd on St. Patrick’s Day as this one.

VIVA LA BANDA ROSSA!!
VIVA ST. PATRICK!!

For more photos - please click on the following link
St. Patrick's Day Parade - Utica NY