Bandas are festive brass bands with drums and lots of noise – the background music to any good festival!
They wander the streets during the festival, cheerfully livening up bars and restaurants. The identity of each banda can be seen in its outfit and its name.
Each musician wears a different “chamarre” and scarf in the colours of their band.
In the Côte Landes Nature holiday destination, we have two bandas:
- in Castets, the “Lous Tiarrots” (“friends of the aperitif”) who wear the colours red and white
- in Lit et Mixe with “Lous Mayouns” (“the little seagulls”) who wear blue and white outfits, the colours of the village!
A banda is also a mixture of generations and musical styles.
They used to be exclusively made up of men, and even today some, whose names will be withheld, still have no women in their groups!
In the “Tiarrots” and the “Lous Mayouns,” everyone has their place but you have to prove yourself in “prep class” at music school, then with a harmony orchestra, before taking the plunge into full banda.
Becoming a musician goes beyond music, it’s a concept that brings together disparate people that might never have met without this link.
Playing, listening, dancing in a banda is great fun. The bandas gather, and differences melt away… at least for the duration of the party!
