Excitement spread through the crowd as the local band Blue Rainboots took the stage at the Talents and Traditions assembly today. An almost surprise appearance, the band performed their newest single “2023.”

“[We felt] nervous cause it’s probably the biggest crowd we’ve ever had, cause we’ve been playing really small venues,” guitarist and Highland student Simon Palo said. “But this was so much fun.”

With the boundaries of music genre’s slowly breaking down as listeners stream on with their playlists, the rise of many indie-plus-a-little-bit-of-many-other-styles as well as other “genres” of musicians took form. The band consists of Highland students Geo Quintanilla who is the drummer, Simon Palo who is the guitarist and does vocals, and Simon Griffen (the alpha Simon) who is the bassist and vocalist as well.

Today’s performance was kind of unplanned. The band figured it would be good publicity to come out and perform on the assembly. They had not even fully rehearsed the song before they went out, only having done a sound check in the morning.

“Today was the first day we’ve ever played with a drum set on this stage,” Griffen said. “We were kind of just crossing our fingers.”

Fans can expect a new album coming out possibly sometime in May or June. There might also be a single that is released sometime in the near future. They also might be going to L.A. for some performances over the summer, but the details of all of these things are still being worked out.

“It’s been a huge goal of ours and we have a pretty good following in L.A.,” Griffen said.

There is indeed a lot to look forward to in the future. Despite their nerves, they got the crowd hyped and excited, and brought an exhilarating end to an assembly filled with many amazing acts. Their new song “2023” is available to purchase on iTunes, Amazon, etc. and stream on Spotify.