Griffith East Public School band sends year out with a bang

Over the year, the band has taken off to Sydney, joined with other school bands for the Bandlink program and done plenty of performances in between building up their repertoire of music.

The group now has around thirty songs under their belt, from classics to modern pop covers and far beyond.

Saxophone player Lachlan Rebetzke said that he'd found the band 'enjoyable and entertaining,' an idea that baritone player Ruby Gullifer agreed with.

"They know how to make you smile," she said.

"You learn new skills as well."

Percussionist Arlo Murphy was very excited to be involved, taking his musical career further by playing in his dad's band 'Cold Cowboys' - and even looking to it as a potential career.

"I'll keep it up, I have fun with it," he said.

Band director Rhys Thomas said that it had been a big year for the band, and they were keen to send it out with a big performance featuring Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" and Camilla Cabello's "Havana."

"It was a good experience. We haven't played an outdoor experience for some time so it's a nice way to finish a year," he said.

"It was good we were able to play through a bit of the repertoire for an end of year concert. We just want to thank everyone for coming out and those who helped us get to Sydney earlier this year for our trip."

The group initially planned to play just a few songs at the City Park stage to round out the year, but with so many suggestions and songs to play, kept going for almost an hour - moving from pop songs to some more classics.

Mr Rebetzke said his favourite song to play was 'Celtic Air and Dance' while Mr Murphy preferred 'Seven Nation Army.'

Ms Gullifer went back to the Celtic theme, preferring a song called 'Vikings.'