Biggest High School Letdown

I went to a relatively small high school, compared to most around me. As you may have realized, I am into band. I've been in band since sixth grade, jazz band since 8th grade (both continue to today), taken private lessons from 10th grade onwards, play at church, and just generally do band things. At my school, Farmington High School, I had the greatest band director ever. Along with having the greatest band director ever, I played in one of the finest high school jazz ensembles in the State of Minnesota. My 11th grade year, we took 2nd place in a national jazz championship held in Branson, Missouri, and in my 12th grade year, we won the LaCrosse jazz festival (beating the band that took first at the Branson nationals). We were dang good, I'm not going to lie. So, what is the letdown, you may ask? The simple reason is concerts. We put on maybe 2 or 3 concerts a year, and every concert, I heartily implored people to come listen to us. Now, you have to understand, most of the friends I implored did not go to Farmington, but the surrounding towns. I knew them all through my church. Most of my friends from Farmington came to a lot of the concerts, or at least my close ones. For all my concerts, not just jazz band, but concert band, and marching band, I would beg people to come listen to us. You know, I wanted to play for my friends. When I tally up marching band shows, band concerts, musicals, and jazz band concerts, it comes out to roughly 35 musical opportunites over 3 years. I think I had friends attend 3 of those events. I say this not to pass judgement upon my friends, but to examine why this happens. The biggest blow, and the one that still bothers me, came in the spring of my 12th grade year. I think this epitomizes my situation in high school, and to a certain extent, in college. A female friend of mine said she would come to my spring jazz band concert, the last such concert of my high school career. And you have to realize, I loved jazz band. I talked about it all the time. And we were awesome, it can't be denied. We had just won the LaCrosse festival, and we were freaking good. I was so excited that this girl was coming. She also happened to be my romantic interest through most of high school, so that just augmented it. Day of the concert, she calls and says she isn't coming because she had too much homework. Needless to say, I was crushed, and to a certain extent, still am crushed by that situation. It was sort of a culmination of all the times people failed to come to my concerts. I might have even cried that much, because I felt like people didn't really care about what I liked or was passionate about. But mainly, I felt people just didn't care about me. And you know, no hate towards this girl. She is one of the nicest people I have the pleasure of knowing, and I maintain to think that if she knew just how much it meant to me that she come, she would have found a way to come. But she didn't, so I guess it happens. I just wish she would have came and heard us play. The whole dish of people not coming was one of the biggest struggles I had in high school. And I couldn't understand what the deal was, because I would go to tons of concerts. I would go on the internet, check out the dates of my friends' band concerts or musicals, and plan my life around those events, so I could attend. I think in some ways, I covered up what I felt by not having people come hear me play by channeling it into going to see other people. It still continues today, I think. At college this year, I felt terrible when I was invited to a musical in the fall, but couldn't go because I had my own jazz concert down here in Decorah. But seriously, I'm pretty sure I made it to at least one event of my friends' a year, throughout high school. Why do I get the losing end? I don't know, this just irritates me. Of course, some people had good excuses. Some, being the operative word. I suppose it's selfish to want people to come and hear you like I did. But I never wanted people to come to hear how much better we were than their high school or anything, because we weren't. Save for jazz, Farmington was light years behind the other high schools of the Twin Cities, musically and theatrically. Now I'm in college, and I play trombone in the top concert band down here at Luther. And the top band at Luther is like, internationally famous, and good is an understatement to describe them. I'm going to tour Japan and China this spring with them. And once again, I am sending out invitations to see my concert in Minneapolis at the end of the tour. And once again, I just know that I'm going to be let down. Or at least, am pretty sure. I don't mean to be mean, but is it really that hard for people to invest about 2 hours of their time to support one of their brethren? It's cliché, but those two hours could mean the world to the person you come to support. I would have given anything for that girl to show up at my last jazz band concert. I don't know, I guess I expect too much. Moral of the story = Go to people's events, it actually matters to them, contrary to what you may think.