band member

All season, high school football coaches advise their players to stay focused and not look ahead. Then there’s what happens before, during and after the Garfield vs. Roosevelt football game is played.

“We’ve been hearing about this game since January,” Roosevelt coach Ernesto Ceja said. “I get the texts, the phone calls, ‘Are you guys going to beat Garfield?’ I’m like, ‘Let me put a team together, then I’ll get back to you.’”

The annual East L.A. Classic, in its 90th year, has a double homecoming and usually produces the largest regular-season crowd of the football season. It is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday at East Los Angeles College. The JV game is at 4 p.m., followed by a girls’ flag football game, then the varsity. DJ Mustard will be part of halftime festivities.

In this time of concerns about ICE raids in Los Angeles, East L.A. College officials say every entrance will be watched by L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies, campus police or private security. The school hosted 11 high school graduations last summer with no incidents and believes fans should feel comfortable attending. Tickets are available at GoFan.co

Garfield is on the verge of winning the Eastern League title with a 6-2 record and 5-0 league mark. Roosevelt (4-4, 3-1) has won three straight league games since switching to the double-wing attack.

Garfield principal Regina Marquez Martinez told a gathering of media, players, cheerleaders and band members on Wednesday at East Los Angeles College: “This community, these schools, we’re as American as apple pie and pan dulce.”

Said LAUSD board member Rocio Rivas: “Let’s go East L.A. Let’s go Boyle Heights.”

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

In 2018, Paul Simon walked onto the Hollywood Bowl stage for what most in the crowd believed to be his last tour stop in Los Angeles, ever. Simon expected that too — he’d billed the event as his “Homeward Bound — Farewell Tour.” After 50 years of performing, a then-record three Grammy wins for album, a catalog of some of the most sophisticated and inquisitive American songwriting ever put to paper — he’d go out in full garlands.

So what a shock and delight when Simon, now 83, announced a few years later that he was not quite done yet. In 2023, he released a new album, “Seven Psalms,” an elliptical, gracious invocation for the arc of his life, drawing on biblical imagery and intertwined guitar fugues.

But even better, Simon would also return to the stage for a new tour, including a five-night run at Disney Concert Hall. For L.A. fans, these shows were one last chance to reconnect with Simon, who now had a profound late-career album to bookend his catalog. Those songs spanned from his years in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s to a Sabrina Carpenter duet on “Saturday Night Live’s” 50th anniversary special.

Wednesday’s show — the last of the Disney hall stand — got to all of it, with Simon still in exquisite form in the last light of his performing career.

If Simon, seven years ago, had any doubts about his interest or ability to perform live at this exacting level, they must have disappeared the second he got a guitar in his hand at Disney Hall. The set opened with a full run of “Seven Psalms,” a short yet profound song cycle in which a dense, ornamental acoustic guitar figure recurs over several songs in an intimate valediction.

“Seven Pslams” belongs alongside David Bowie’s “Blackstar” or Johnny Cash’s “American Recordings” albums in the canon of wide-lens looks at the mystery of late life. Simon’s music was wise before its time even when he was a young man. But the perspective he has at this vantage, on the backside of 80 with a rejuvenated muse, was especially moving.

“I lived a life of pleasant sorrows, until the real deal came,” he sang on “Love Is Like a Braid.” “And in that time of prayer and waiting, where doubt and reason dwell / A jury sat, deliberating. All is lost or all is well.“

Simon’s band members for this stint — a dozen or so strong, spanning percussion, woodwinds and guitars — were mostly impressionists during this portion, adding distant bells and chamber flourishes to the patina of these songs.

While he kicked up his heels a bit on the bluesy “My Professional Opinion,” there was a trembling power in “Trail of Volcanoes” and, especially, “Your Forgiveness,” in which Simon took stock of his time on Earth and whatever lies next. “Two billion heart beats and out / Waving the flag in the last parade / I have my reasons to doubt,” he sang, followed by a gracious incantation: “Dip your hand in heaven’s waters, god’s imagination … All of life’s abundance in a drop of condensation.”

Paul Simon plays and sings Wednesday at Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The hit-heavy back half of the show was a little rowdier. One fan even made a bit of history when he tossed a $20 bill onstage, which was enough for Simon to gamely oblige his request to play a verse of “Kodachrome.”

Simon and his band had looser reins here. “Graceland” and “Under African Skies” still radiated curiosity for the world’s musical bounty, with the fraught complexity of that album nonetheless paving a stone on the road for African music’s current global ascent. (He introduced his bassist, Bakithi Kumalo, as the last surviving member of the original “Graceland” band.)

An elegant “Slip Slidin’ Away” led up to a poignant “The Late Great Johnny Ace,” which took a tale of rock ‘n’ roll self-destruction and pinned it to a generational sense of cultural collapse. Simon didn’t reference any current events beyond the John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and John Lennon assassinations, but you could feel a contemporary gravity in the song.

Veteran drummer Steve Gadd reprised his jazzy breaks for “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” and the fatherhood ballad “St. Judy’s Comet” was a sweet, deep-cut flourish. (That mood continued when Edie Brickell, Simon’s wife and vocalist, slipped in from the side stage to whistle the hook on “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.) But the band hit full velocity on a pair of songs from “The Rhythm of the Saints.” “Spirit Voices” conjured an ayahuasca reverie with its thicket of guitars and hand percussion, while the sprawling and time-signature-bending “The Cool, Cool River” showed Simon the musician — not just the poet — still in absolute command.

Simon’s set never got to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” or “You Can Call Me Al,” but the final encore wrapped with just him and a guitar and the eternal hymn of “The Sound of Silence.” His guitar work retained all its original power in the opening instrumental runs, and Simon looked genuinely grateful that, perhaps even to his own surprise, the stage hadn’t lost its promise or potency for him just yet.

Who knows whether Wednesday was the last time Angelenos will get to see Simon perform live (this tour wraps next month in Seattle). If it was, then it was a beautiful benediction for one of America’s defining songwriters. But if it wasn’t, take any chance you get to see him again.

NEW YORK — “Don’t Look Back in Anger” is good advice for the Britpop band Oasis, who launch their surprising reunion tour today in Cardiff, Wales.

Led by brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, the reunion marks the end of the siblings’ long-held feud, one that led to Oasis disbanding in 2009. For many fans, this news is almost too good to be true. They’re anxiously awaiting whether the Gallaghers will indeed make it through the entire run of international dates and even perhaps extend the reunion.

Whether they’re in it for the long haul or will call it quits at some point sooner (hopefully not before they reach the Rose Bowl Sept. 6 and 7), here’s a look at a few other very famous — but very brief — band reunions.

The Beach Boys

DISBANDED: Technically, they never broke up. Read on.

HOW LONG THE REUNION LASTED: A few months in 2012.

WHAT HAPPENED: There is no linear history when it comes to the Beach Boys, but here’s the abridged: Band members came and went, and the band’s visionary, the late Brian Wilson, retired from touring in 1964 following a breakdown caused by stress and exhaustion. His place was soon filled by Bruce Johnston, who remained with the group for decades. Wilson also infamously feuded with his cousin and bandmate Mike Love over songwriting credits for years.

The question here is: Can a band that never broke up reunite? In this case, yes: The band — with both Wilson and Love — got together for a new album, “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” and world tour in 2012, celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary. It wasn’t the whole original lineup, however: Drummer Dennis Wilson died in 1983, and guitarist Carl Wilson died in 1998.

CHANCES OF GETTING BACK TOGETHER: The force behind the band, Brian Wilson, died last month at age 82, but Love continues to tour under the Beach Boys name.

Led Zeppelin

DISBANDED: 1980

HOW LONG THE REUNION LASTED: Good question. The band played a few one-off events in the mid-1980s throughout the ’00s, never embarking on a reunion tour. So, a few days? A few hours?

WHAT HAPPENED: Led Zeppelin disbanded immediately following the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980, reuniting only for a select few events in the decades that followed. Most notably, their first show back was a complicated set at Live Aid in 1985 in Philadelphia. Lead singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones’ last performance together was in 2007 at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert held in London’s O2 Arena. There, Bonham’s son Jason Bonham played the drums. Page and Plant had a separate band together that released a couple of albums in the ‘90s.

CHANCES OF GETTING BACK TOGETHER: Highly unlikely. The band has successfully evaded reunion requests in the past, including one from President Bill Clinton. In 2013, Clinton asked the British rock greats to get back together for the 2012 Superstorm Sandy benefit concert in New York City. He asked; they said no.

Nirvana

DISBANDED: 1994

HOW LONG THE REUNION LASTED: A series of one-off performances in the 2010s and 2020s.

WHAT HAPPENED: Nirvana disbanded following the death of frontman and principal songwriter Kurt Cobain. Its members pursued other projects — most notably, drummer Dave Grohl founded the Foo Fighters. But two decades after Cobain’s death, in 2014, Nirvana was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, so bassist Krist Novoselic, touring guitarist Pat Smear (of the Germs) and Grohl got together for a short set — joined by Lorde, St. Vincent, Joan Jett and Kim Gordon on vocals for a reunion dubbed “Hervana.”

CHANCES OF GETTING BACK TOGETHER: Maybe there could be a few more gigs here and there? Novoselic and Grohl reunited for a few one-off performances in the years that followed, most recently coming together for the Fire Aid benefit concert in Los Angeles and the 50th anniversary celebrations for “Saturday Night Live,” both this year. At the latter, Post Malone took over vocal duties.

Oasis

DISBANDED: 2009

HOW LONG THE REUNION IS SUPPOSED TO LAST: If the band makes it through their full run of reunion shows, July through November. So, five months.

WHAT HAPPENED: Good question. The band — and in particular, the Gallagher brothers — have not released a public statement giving specific reasons for the reunion. But the initial tour announcement did seem to allude to past tensions. “The guns have fallen silent,” Oasis said. “The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised.”

In 2019, Liam Gallagher told the Associated Press he was ready to reconcile.

“The most important thing is about me and him being brothers,” he said of Noel. “He thinks I’m desperate to get the band back together for money. But I didn’t join the band to make money. I joined the band to have fun and to see the world.”

Fans had long theorized a reunion might be on the horizon, too: In the wake of the 2017 bombing that killed 22 at an Ariana Grande concert in Oasis’ hometown of Manchester, Liam Gallagher performed at a benefit concert. He criticized his brother’s absence, but a spokesperson said Noel Gallagher couldn’t attend because of a long-standing family trip. Benefit organizers said Noel Gallagher approved the use of Oasis’ music and donated royalties from “Don’t Look Back in Anger” to the British Red Cross’ One Love Manchester fund.

CHANCES OF GETTING BACK TOGETHER: It’s happening. A better question is: What are the chances of a new album? That’s impossible to know.

Outkast

DISBANDED: They never officially disbanded, so call it a hiatus. They never released another album after 2006’s “Idlewild,” and 2007 is frequently cited as the year they officially took a break.

HOW LONG THE REUNION LASTED: A few months in 2014? They announced reunion dates in January 2014, played their first in April, and ended that October.

WHAT HAPPENED: At the top of 2014, Outkast — the innovative Atlanta-based hip-hop duo consisting of Big Boi and André 3000 — announced they would tour festivals around the world to mark 20 years of their band, following a near-decade-long hiatus. The dates began at Coachella, where the duo headlined both Friday night shows. Then they made their way to their home state of Georgia for the CounterPoint Music & Arts Festival, which the AP described as “an energetic show that kept the crowd jamming in the late hours.”

Once the reunion shows were done, so was Outkast. Big Boi continued to release solo records, and André 3000 would follow suit … almost 10 years later, when he released his debut solo full-length album, the flute-forward “New Blue Sun,” in 2023.

“New Blue Sun” has “no bars,” he joked to AP shortly after it was released. It’s a divergence from rap because “there was nothing I was liking enough to rap about, or I didn’t feel it sounded fresh.”

CHANCES OF GETTING BACK TOGETHER: When asked about new Outkast music, André 3000 told AP, “I never say never. … But I can say that the older I get, I feel like that time has happened.”

The Velvet Underground

DISBANDED: 1973, more or less.

HOW LONG THE REUNION LASTED: A few months in 1993.

WHAT HAPPENED: Here’s another opaque one for you, as band reunions so often tend to be: John Cale was ousted in 1968, Lou Reed left in 1970 and the Velvet Underground slowly dissolved from there, releasing their final album, “Squeeze,” in 1973. In 1990, Cale and Reed joined forces to release an album in homage to Andy Warhol, “Songs for Drella,” opening the door for a future reunion. There were a few one-off performances, and then the band toured Europe in 1993, including a performance at Glastonbury.

CHANCES OF GETTING BACK TOGETHER: It is pretty much impossible. Reed died in 2013. Guitarist Sterling Morrison died in 1995. And Nico died in 1988.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press.