MARION — With dense fog shrouding fireworks from visibility, sound took center stage Sunday, July 7 at Silvershell Beach.

There was, of course, the sustained booms of fireworks launched into hiding amidst a haze. But there was also the music of the Marion Concert Band, which opened its summer 2024 season at Marion’s annual Fourth of July festivity.

“As far as our end of it, it went well,” Tobias Monte, the band’s director said.

The band played pieces of Americana, like “America the Beautiful” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” during and after the foggy fireworks show.

The members of the Marion Concert Band are professionals, teachers and advanced students, and they come to Marion from a wide range of locations. One member is from Smithfield, Rhode Island, according to Monte.

“It’s fun to play difficult music with good players,” Monte said. “That’s the draw.”

Typically, the group performs its Independence Day program prior to the fireworks at Silvershell Beach, but the fireworks started earlier due to weather concerns, so the sequence was reversed.

“Thanks for sticking with us,” Monte said from the conductor podium in between pieces to the many that hung at the beach even after the fireworks show concluded.

The band usually communicates with the barge off the beach shooting fireworks during the show in order to match up the music with the grand finale, according to Monte.

That didn’t happen this year, he said. Even so, the timing of the music and the final barrage were only off by 30 seconds.

“It was cool,” Monte said. “It was interesting.”

The Marion Concert Band will play every Friday at 7 p.m. at the Robert O. Broomhead Bandstand on Island Wharf on Front Street until the end of August.

Each week’s concert will have a different theme, like Broadway or Latin American music.

For the “British Invasion” concert, which this year is Friday, Aug. 2, members of the Cape Cod British Car Club — with vintage automobiles in tow — have attended in the past.

The band’s program has “something for everyone,” according to Monte, who’s been with the band for 50 years.

“It’s like the highlight of my summer,” he said.