I take a final swig from the Red Bull a half hour before going on stage – after relatively sleepless nights for the entire convention, I needed to be at full energy for the concert as a musician and MC. Our time comes, and we walk on stage and start our set. We feel the crowd, and I introduce the band – Ocabanda.
Day Zero
It’s January 1st – New Year’s Eve festivities have ended, and there’s too much to do before the big event. Ocabanda is going back to MAGFest (Music and Gaming Fest) in Maryland, but this time, we’re an official act. This means we have a main stage concert, options for a concert at the hotel bar, space to sell merchandise, and the option to have a panel. Given that we have never had so many opportunities before, we take it all. I frantically spend the day packing, since the holidays among other things took most of my attention (where my brother and his lovely girlfriend visited from Dublin, Ireland). I pack, my brother and his girlfriend take me to the airport, and I take off on my red-eye flight.
After an exceedingly short layover in Chicago, I board the flight to Baltimore where the whole band flying in meets. Tad, one of our members/the conductor, picks us up and takes us to relax, rehearse, and spend the night before we go to MAGFest. By the way, MAGFest also provided our hotel rooms and free meals. We’ve never felt so important. I also get to meet Kaitlyn’s (another band member) boyfriend Reed, and we hit it off super well. There was an attempt to make home-made butterbeer that night based off of this video, but it went horribly wrong and we ultimately gave up. Reed also happens to be a high-level Smash player, so we played a few rounds where I’d never felt so bad at a video game that I’m good at.
Day One – Exploration and Sweaters
We all eventually slept, and the next morning (Thursday), we checked in to the hotel at the convention center, rehearsed, and had our first day looking around the convention. Reed and I went to the gaming hall before opening thanks to our special passes, and we played a VR-ish version of a new MechWarrior game called Battletech. It was fun, but I know the game itself is kind of pay-to-win. Next, I ended up going to an amazing panel discussing the Donkey Kong Country animated TV show and how it relates to, of all things, Buddhist philosophy. It turns out DK is an enlightened ape. I then went to the free, con-provided dinner – awesome Chinese food. To finish the night, we had… a sweater-making party.
Everyone and their plus-ones brought a sweater, and Ella (another band member) and her boyfriend Josh brought a TON of cut-outs to hot glue onto the sweaters. They made me, at my request, a pineapple, and we got to arranging our sweaters.
It takes a while, but we all finish, and we plan to coordinate wearing them on Friday, the day of our panel and our first concert. David (our band leader) and I plan out the panel for tomorrow and eventually get to bed. But what is sleep? It’s a convention, after all.
Day Two – The First Performances
We awaken, finish preparing the panel, grab breakfast, then get over to our panel room clad in sweaters. We quickly review who-says-what, do a rehearsal that we sell as a bonus pre-performance, then start the panel. We mostly ended up presenting information and it got a bit lecture-ish, but the audience was somewhat engaged throughout. When it came to my turn to speak, however, I dialed it to 11.
The audience had been listening to interesting information about Ocarinas, but it was a lot all at once. I wrote a term paper for a music class about the history of Ocarinas just a few weeks prior, so I spearheaded that section with as much energy as I could muster.
The Ocarina as we know it was made by a dude named Giuseppe Donati in Budrio, Italy… I’m going to dial it to 11 now. Hemadeamusicalthinganddroppeditandwaslikeawwshucksbutthebrokeninstrumentturnedouttoworkandhewaslikethislookslikeagoose(Oca)andsoundslikeanocarinasoi’llcallitanocarina(little goose)……etc
Paraphrasing Myself – This is how my section went, and the full video of the panel will be on Youtube on the MAGFest page.
I’m really proud of that section, and if I am remembered for anything at MAGFest, I am most proud of “The hilarious guy at the Ocarina Panel.” But that’s just our day until around noon.
We rehearse for another solid segment and have our first concert at the Belvedere Bar inside the convention area. This was my first time doing the talking for the band between songs and introducing everyone (which I will refer to as MCing) for the con, so I was on full attention for everything. The concert went pretty well, and it was a great way for us to figure out exactly what to improve for our big concert the next day. Some things of note at the concert: Robbie Benson from Super Soul Bros was one of the sound engineers for us, and YouTuber SmoothMcGroove watched most of our performance. It was a great time and a fantastic learning experience.
Next, we had to prepare for our big main-stage concert, but logistics would not work out. I grab dinner (Indian food), meet a cool MAGFest sound technician with a lot of awesome stories, then hang out with Reed and Josh after their shift at our merchandise booth (which we all worked shifts for to sell Ocarinas, David’s Method Book, CDs, and more). We play some Sonic Adventure 2: Battle versus games, where Reed gets destroyed. Ironically, he mains Sonic in Smash, so I can say I beat Reed’s Sonic – just not in Smash.
The plan for rehearsal was to play songs in public at a JamPod (MAGFest’s designated music jam areas) so we could get extra reps running through our music, but that never came to fruition. Thanks to many factors between a conducting panel half the band attended going too late and general tiredness from everyone, we instead elected to not rehearse. Late that night, David and Roxy (a close friend of David’s) took me to a secret tea room specifically for attendees to relax and recharge, and after they left I ended up talking with Ella until 3 AM. It was an objectively poor decision to stay up that late, but we both needed time to relax and talk because of how busy the trip had been thus far. We return to the room and get to sleep, eager for the big day…
Day Three – The Big One
Up early for the big day, a sleep deprived Ocabanda eats a quick breakfast and jumps straight into rehearsal. We make some quick fixes and re-runs for extra confidence on our set, then go for our sound check. We have the first concert of the day – the 2 PM slot – so we conveniently have the most allotted time for a sound check. It goes well, and we finish prepping ourselves. I drink half a red bull before the check and finish it after because I needed to be at full energy to do my MCing. and it thankfully worked perfectly energy-wise.
We all get together backstage and walk on. play our first song, and the rest goes amazingly. Most other groups at MAGFest tend to be loud music you can dance to, and we were an exception. We play our full set for the concert and end up going a few minutes overtime (which would not have been the case if I didn’t talk so much), and the crowd loves us. After only a year and a half, it finally feels like we’re breaking through. We didn’t play the set perfectly and made a lot of small mistakes here and there, so we have had better technically-performed concerts, but no concert could match the pure excitement and energy flying through the air at that concert – also the sound technicians were an amazing help. You can watch a video of the full concert with fantastic recording quality here!
That’s the end of our big performance, but MAGFest is far from over.
The Night After the Concert
Now that our responsibilities were over, we could finally enjoy the convention. We all darted to different things, but I’ll recount my personal experience.
Reed and I both enjoy watching this Youtuber, AttackingTucans (Tyler), who had mentioned in a video that he was planning to attend MAGFest. My rule of thumb for Youtubers I watch is that I’m either thoroughly entertained/informed watching their videos or they would seem someone I’d want to be friends with. Otherwise I’d have too many channels to pay attention to and I don’t have time for that. Anyways, Tyler was in the “friend” category, and I was majorly hoping to at least meet him during my trip.
To make that more likely, I invited him to Ocabanda’s concert via a YouTube comment on the video he mentions going to MAGFest, and he tells me to remind him on Twitter.
I do that, and it turns out he has a schedule conflict with the concert, so he ends up unable to go. However, after the concert when the band is transferring our merchandise back from the stage area to our booth to then prepare for a JamPod set, Reed and I step out since we’re extra bodies in a cramped space. Somehow, we see Tyler walking in the distance, and we approach him, start a conversation, and he comes to our JamPod concert. Reed and I seemed to really hit it off with him, and then the concert itself went great. We almost caused a hallway blockage with the people stopping to watch, which is also thanks to the immense crowd of wizards taking up most of the hall.
After the concert, we hang out more, Tyler invites us to dinner (which we decline), and he introduces us to his friend Daniel, who turns out to also be a YouTuber. It also turns out Tyler already owns an Ocarina, so I take him to Ocabanda’s booth to buy a method book since he seemed inspired to learn Ocarina and improve his music ability. We were about to to all part ways for our various plans, but we invite him and Daniel to join us later in the evening, and they agree. Time for dinner.
The plan was for all of us to sit down and eat together somewhere, but with our group of 13 we ended up splitting up after some failed attempts to seat ourselves. Some went to Chipotle, others explored other options. I enjoyed my half barbacoa half steak burrito. We all reconvened at some point toward the room, and we began our later-night festivities. Tyler and Daniel joined us from hanging out in the room to jamming down at the con and more, and I was really happy that my hunch that I’d be friends with them was true. It was one of the most fun nights of my life spending it with the band, friends from last MAGfest, and new friends.
But all things come to an end – or at least a hiatus.
Day Four – Wrapping Up
We check out from the hotel and say our goodbyes to MAGFest. The convention ended at 5 PM, but we sadly had to leave at noon due to various reasons. We check out of the hotel, grab our luggage, and pile into cars to stay at Tad’s apartment for the next night. We deposit our luggage at his place then go to a sushi restaurant.
After having been to Japan for an extended period of time, I was dubious to have sushi in the east coast (outside New York), so I ordered Tonkatsu instead. We ate up, but getting our bill took forever. We eventually paid, then returned to Tad’s for games, dinner, and a final night together. We play Mario Kart, Mario Party, Settlers of Catan, Smash, and Dragonball Z Trivial Pursuit. There was a lot going on to make a big, wonderful time to finish up with (almost) everybody. Steven had to go to the airport early in the morning, so he sadly couldn’t come. I finally pack my bags and eventually get to sleep.
Day 5 – The Next Adventure Begins
After spending the morning with some of the remaining members and saying our goodbyes, Jordan drives me to the MegaBus stop. Why a bus you ask? I’m not going home yet. Some friends from home are going to New York today and they happen to have room for an extra person, so the foodventure through Manhattan begins!
The Reflection and Gratitude
If you told me 8 years ago when I started playing Ocarina based on an impulse purchase at an anime convention that I’d be doing this with my life, I’d never believe you. It was a hobby of fun with a dash of passion that I got really into and kept up with. One year I happened to meet David, who I looked up to a lot at the time and connected with him a tiny bit then helped with the Ocarina booth the following year, thinking that was that.
Oh, lord that was just the beginning.
He invited me to join Ocabanda in our first trip to Anime Expo 2017 to test the waters, and we’ve had three more since then including MAGFest 2018, the 2018 US Ocarina Festival this year’s MAGFest. Everyone in Ocabanda has become a second family to me, and I’m so thankful for having them in my life. This band has created some of my closest connections, opened doors I never even knew existed. I’m forever grateful to everybody – David, Jordan, Tad, Steven, Ella, Kaitlyn, (originally, but unable to continue with the band) Myles, and (for one jam-esque performance and being my Fanime co-panelist and a perfect human) Daniel.
If you didn’t notice, I have lots of links to other posts in this paragraph please click them. You’ll get a fuller sense of both my and Ocabanda’s story arc. But anywho…..
Outside Ocabanda at MAGFest, I want to specifically thank Carlos and Sabrina for their constant support of the band, Robbie for his support and for running our sound board during the Belvedere concert + amazing show with his band Super Soul Bros (he’s actually partially responsible for me taking Ocarina a bit more seriously as well after jamming with him at Fanime a few times), Tia for her immense support and positive energy for the band, Tyler and Daniel (not the aforementioned Ocarina one, but the Daniel of Failboat variety) for being amazing new friends to myself and the band, Reed and Josh for all the antics of room 69, Tara for letting us stay at her and Tad’s apartment and all the help she gave us, Mark for his constant help and support with Ocabanda, David K. for the help and fun conversations, Roxy for the huge energy and support she shows us at all of our events, Nikki for the constant support, my parents for supporting me in this strange Ocarina band full of people from the Internet they never met, and everyone else who made this MAGFest an amazing time. There’s too many people to thank, so I’m certain I forgot at least a few people. I said this at the concert and I’ll say it again here – the band is just the surface. We could never have done half the things we did without the support of our friends, family, and everyone else who’s helped along the way. This is a sincere thank you.
Now let’s see where Ocabanda goes next~
That’s all folks! Here’s a picture of me with Donkey Kong.
Andy Cormier 