As music rocks through Diamond Bar High School, hundreds of students flock to its Commercial Music program Brahmapalooza. Every year, Commercial Music hosts its annual Brahmapalooza event, where various bands from the program perform in front of the amphitheater for a crowd of DBHS students, faculty, and others.
Students enrolled in the Commercial Music program are required to perform in Brahmapalooza every year. A few months before the event, the musicians in Commercial Music first prepared by dividing themselves into bands.
“In preparation for Brahmapalooza, we scheduled outside-of-school practices, not only in-school practices,” senior Anika del Castro, member of the band Room on Fire, said. “We also kept each other accountable for learning our parts.”
Several of the sets were rehearsed during lunch before the event. Despite the consistent practice, some bands were still nervous for their respective acts.
“It was a long festival, and we were towards the end so we got to see the other bands perform before us,” freshman Austin Toh of the band “Fresh Meat” said. “It was nerve-wracking to see how we compared against other bands, but I think we did pretty well.”
Despite the performers’ pre-show nerves, the event was well-received especially due to the overall lively and fun atmosphere. The musicians received much positive feedback from audience members.
“The crowd was loving it,” freshman Chloe Chan said. “Whenever we went up there, they were always like woo-hoo, so the crowd was really nice.”
All the performers agreed that the audience is one of the most important parts of a performance and that having a good crowd is what many of them enjoy the most about music.
“There’s bits and times where we’ll have a spotlight moment on stage,” senior Josh Wang from “Room on Fire” said. “When people scream and cheer, it just makes us feel really good about what we’re doing.”
Although Commercial Music was the organizer for Brahmapalooza, they were not the only ones who contributed to the event. Clubs such as Printed Works Club, which gained recognition from the event, also played a big role in Brahmapalooza, taking responsibility for the production of merchandise.
“Commercial Music gives us what they want as they have their own designs,” Printed Works Co-President Ryan Wang said. “Once we record the designs, people working down here with the shirt printers and other stuff, they just start making it when it pops up on the Google Sheet.”
As commercial music completes another successful Brahmapalooza, the juniors and underclassmen of commercial music look to the future. Several of the performers hope that new generations of musicians will join the commercial music class in the future.
“Just go for it because in this program there are not a lot of opportunities to shine the way some of our students do,” Junior Zayd Meneses from “Room on Fire” said. “It’s just a really good way to express yourself with the people you like playing with and at the end of the day just have fun playing the songs you want to play.”
