When Mt. Vesuvius erupted on Aug. 24, 79 A.D., the people of Pompeii didn’t see it coming.

They were killed by the volcano in the very spots where they stood.

The Warsaw Community High School marching band and color guard are taking that historical disaster and using it for their theme this year.

Band director Mickey Ratliff said “Vesuvius” also is the title of one of the pieces of music they play in the show. Assistant band director Matthew Gratton said he looked for other pieces of music to go along with “Vesuvius” that presented what a volcanic eruption would sound like. Audiences should definitely have that feeling of a volcano eruption and fear when they hear the music, Gratton said.

The introduction to the performance is rather slow. Ratliff said the music then goes into a section from “Purgatio” called “Bacchanalia” that is fast paced and energetic. The next section slows down, but is a dance from “Vesuvius” they are calling “Tango.”

“It should be pretty neat because it involves the drummers,” said Ratliff, and one of the drummers does the tango. The show ends with another high-energy section called “Eruption.”

Gratton said some of the music interprets the daily life of the people of Pompeii before the volcano erupted. But the hardest part of the movement to pull off, he said, is their ballad, the “Tango.” Sometimes the hard part is not the pieces with many notes, but in making it musical, he said.