Just like the trucks pulling the Rose Parade's floats, the performers in Thursday's big procession need a tune up.
A visiting Mexican marching band had a particularly grand one Sunday morning, when Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez blessed them at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown LA.
The 285 members of Delfines Marching Band then previewed their Rose Parade performance, the band's third.
"The Mexicans, they clap and they're crying when you are playing the Mexican music. It's amazing," said one Delfines member who's played in Pasadena before.
Delfines Marching Band was the first Latin American band to perform at the Rose Parade, in 2007, a press release said.
Started in 1999 by a public school teacher in Xalapa, a city in Veracruz, Mexico, it has already performed for Queen Elizabeth II and in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.
The band and its dancers are taking a 10-day tour through Southern California, the press release said.
