Council OKs swap of services with band

BANGOR – Local officials on Monday authorized a holiday swap with the Bangor Band.

During a meeting of the City Council’s finance committee, chaired by Councilor John Cashwell, local officials unanimously agreed to waive the city’s usual $1,000 rental fee for use of the Bangor Civic Center for the band’s free annual Christmas concert, set this year for 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 19.

The gift, however, didn’t come without strings. In exchange, city councilors asked the band to play for its supper, so to speak.

The band, believed to be the nation’s second-oldest continually performing community band, agreed to perform at Bass Park during next summer’s Bangor State Fair.

The band was pleased to oblige, according to William Miller, a member of the band’s executive committee.

“Oh, sure, we agreed. We appreciate that. We’re always looking to a chance to play,” Miller said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

“We’re part of the city,” Miller said, adding that the city provides an annual stipend that helps cover the band’s expenses, space in the recreation and parks department’s facility on Main Street and help with transporting instruments, among other things.

“So you might say we’re a department of the city,” he said.

Though the band has played its holiday concert at other locations around Bangor, members like the civic center because it is more “user-friendly” than many other area venues.

The holiday concert, he said, “is a very popular event,” particularly among children, who show up every year in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a certain rotund gentleman who sports a fluffy white beard and wears a red suit.