By Elsa Lim (Chairperson), Sarah Tan (Vice-Chairperson) 

The lights dim. 

The audience falls silent. Anticipating breaths echo throughout the room. 

Backstage, your hands shake and your heart pounds; anxiety, adrenaline, and excitement thrumming through your veins all at once. Your bandmates surround you, the looks on their faces mirroring yours. With clammy palms, you share a final high five, a final group cheer, a final whispered ‘good luck, we got this!’ 

Cloaked in shadow and smoke, cheers and screams accompanying your every step, you take the stage. Fingers finding keys, hands clenching drumsticks, you are swallowed by the applause. For this moment, the stage is yours.  

This is Raffles Rock. 

But we aren’t always rocking it out on stage. This is also Raffles Rock. 

Under the slightly menacing red LED at Block D Level 4, most of the magic happens behind these doors. Say hello to our Jam Studio. On Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:00pm-6:00pm, Rockers head to this hole in the wall to make music together. From harmonising to Queen, to dancing to Twice, we will jam out to any song we can think of. 

During our sessions, we do more than just jam. Our sessions are conducted by our instructor Mr Ian Toh. With him, we learn everything to do with music—history, musicality, and most importantly, how to sound fire on stage. Of course, we can’t forget our teachers-in-charge, Ms Ng Pei San and Mr Ngan Wei Yeong, who keep us all in check.  

But let’s get back to the fun stuff: performing. As RI’s resident rock band, performing is our lifeblood. Every year, we hold two showcase events, Rockin and Rockout. Rockin is a free concert held in school, an appetiser for our main show: Rockout.

Complete with professional lighting, smoke machines and our stunning visuals (face card who?!), that’s a show you definitely don’t want to miss. Rockout is many things to us: the culmination of months of hard work, our Year 5’s grand debut, and the Year 6 band’s final bow. It’s the experience of a lifetime for both us and the audience.  

If you didn’t manage to catch us for either show, don’t worry! Rock also performs for surprise events throughout the year. And if you really want to watch us (we know you do!), we’ll be at Open House to showcase our talents and answer all your questions.  

Now you’ve decided that it’s the Hard-Rock Life for you, how do you become one of us? Come to Open Jam to get a taste of being a Rocker: you’ll get to meet and jam with the seniors (us!) and other interested batchmates.

From there, if you decide Rock is really the place for you, you can sign up for official auditions during the JIP (January Induction Programme) and JAEIP (JAE Induction Programme). We can’t wait to see what you have to offer! 

Whether you’re here for the roaring crowds, the heart-pounding drum fills, the soaring guitar solos, or just the pure joy of making music with friends who feel like family, Raffles Rock is where it all happens. It’s where strangers become bandmates, bandmates become friends, and friends become a family bound by shared passion and the thrill of the stage. So step up, plug in, and let’s make some noise, because the next unforgettable Rockout might just have you in the spotlight.