On the 3rd of September, the Riffs (Newlands Intermediate's school band) went to Bandquest for stage time.

We have been working towards Bandquest since term 2. We were not competing for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, due to the fact you needed two songs to compete, and we only knew one. It was held at Sacred Heart College in Lower Hutt. The schools were from Wellington City, Hutt Valley and Porirua City. 

We arrived at Sacred Heart at 2:50 for a 3:30 sound check. We did sound checks in the order the bands played in. When we arrived, we were given a backstage pass, and sent into the hall to have a briefing. After that, everyone played one song for the soundcheck. While the band before us played, we were sent backstage. We were exactly in the middle of the performance.

When we went onto the stage, we were very nervous, owing to the fact we messed up in the sound check. But it was fine when we began to play. The song we played was Long Way To The Top, by AC/DC. It was by far our best performance yet. The one thing that could’ve been better was a microphone to the bagpipes, as those further back could not hear them. We could hear the keyboard and violin for the first time, as they had  mics and were run through the big speakers. Our secret weapon was the bagpipes. When they started playing and Azzy, the guitarist, started doing the Angus Young duck walk, everyone cheered.

After all the bands had performed the songs a guest artist came out and played, while the judges were making their mind up who would win. She was the person who was tuning the guitars and bases backstage. After the guest artist finished the hosts called all the bands on stage. Chloe from our band won Best Keyboard Player out of all the schools.

The teachers' names who are running the Riffs are Mr Miskimmin and Mrs Cameron. The Riffs band members are Perema on the drums, Chloe on the keyboard, Azzy on the guitar, Deegan on the bass, Shalina and Myla on vocals, and Jonathon on the bagpipes.