What To Do: Chatham Band Concerts
Long streamers of balloons – their strings tied end to end – send a floating rainbow of color high into the purple sky of summer dusk. On the lawn below is a patchwork quilt of blankets, folding chairs and a gathering good-natured crowd of all ages. Bright lights outline the octagonal lines of a simple wooden gazebo, where some 35 musicians in colorful red and blue uniforms are tuning their instruments. Ice cream is licked, popcorn munched, penny candy chewed, light sticks twirled.
“Hi-Dee-Ho!” shouts the conductor, and the brass band is off with an enthusiastic performance of its theme song: “It’s band time in Chatham,” played to the tune of a state fair march.
Chatham’s summer band concerts, performed by the well-loved 40-piece local band, have been a summertime tradition for visitors and locals alike since the 1930s. The band tunes, dance numbers and family singalongs draw crowds of thousands – from twirling toddlers to toe-tapping grandparents – from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. every Friday in July and August.
The free concerts are played in a quaint gazebo, known officially as the Whit Tileston Bandstand in honor of the Chatham Band’s legendary leader, who conducted these charming and lively weekly concerts for five decades. “Whit came onboard as director in 1946, and that’s when things really got rolling,” said band manager George Goodspeed, son of the founder of this all-volunteer band, whose members range from 14-year-old school musicians to veteran players in their 80s.
The current director, Kenneth Eldredge, joined the band as a schoolboy in the 1930s. In those days, concerts were played at an old bandstand that stood on what is now the municipal parking lot next to Chatham Town Hall. That bandstand was moved down Main Street to Kate Gould Park after the Second World War. The story goes that early in the 1950s, a man from New Jersey got up on the bandstand in the middle of a Friday night concert and said, “This band is too big for this little bandstand!” He took up a collection then and there, raising almost enough money from that one night to build a new bandstand. (The old gazebo was moved again to Chatham’s Veteran Field, where it was enclosed and still serves as an equipment storage shed for the Chatham A’s baseball team.)
Balloons are another longstanding tradition. In the early years, said Goodspeed, “there was a guy that used to come from Florida – he and his wife. And they would park their car at the entrance to the park and stand there with balloons and windmills on a stick–sold them for 25 cents or less.” Since the 1950s, the balloons have been sold to raise money for the American Field Service, which sponsors international student exchanges to and from Chatham High School.
Chatham Band concerts remain an exceedingly enticing family experience that has been raved about nationwide for more than five decades, from National Geographic Magazine to the NBC Nightly News. The concerts begin with some favorite Souza marches and then segue into some patriotic tunes and a lively children’s set, when the youngest members of the audience come down from their seats on the hills to parade around the bandstand – first one way, then the other – dance the loop de loo and sing along to such favorites as B-I-N-G-O and Old MacDonald. Broadway hits, waltzes, and the Bunny Hop round out the evening.
Regulars often arrive hours ahead of time to stake out a favorite vantage point by putting down a blanket and lawn chairs. Come early, grab a lobster roll or hot dog at one of the local church suppers just down the street, stroll the appealing array of shops along Chatham’s quaint Main Street and then settle down on the grass for an old-fashioned evening that remains as beguiling now as it did 50 years ago. You’ll want to bring a jacket, as Chatham evenings are notoriously cool, even in the height of summer, but the nostalgia of the Chatham Band Concert won’t fail to warm your heart.
