In March 1930, the Southampton Albion Silver Band undertook a week’s engagement at Southampton’s Palace Theatre, appearing in a production called Barbed Wire.
Set during the First World War, the production presented the Albion musicians as a full ex-Guards Band, complete with bearskins and scarlet tunics.
Between the first and second performances each evening, the Band played on the theatre veranda to attract an audience. The performances proved so successful that on the Saturday evening the police stopped the Band playing because the crowds were causing a traffic jam.
There was an amusing side to the appearance. Members of the public believed they were watching a genuine former Guards Band, yet many of the Albion musicians were still only 14 to 18 years old and were far too young to have served in the Armed Forces.
The engagement provides a wonderful glimpse of the young Albion Band at the beginning of the 1930s and of the wide variety of performances its members were already undertaking around Southampton.