Between the disbandment of the battalion bands of The Light Infantry in 1985 and the creation of the Band of the Light Division in 1994, the Light Infantry had two regimental bands: the Corunna Band and the Salamanca Band.

The Corunna Band

Bandmaster Lever - formerly of the 3rd Battalion - was succeeded in 1990 by Ed Keeley. That same year the Band participated in perhaps the biggest ever engagement of any Light Infantry band: a performance of Roger Walters' work The Wall, staged in Berlin and attracting a television audience estimated at one billion viewers. As the transformation of Germany continued, the Corunna Band also made an exchange visit with a Red Army Band in the East - where it was presented with a brass T62 Soviet tank - and played in Karl Marx Platz for the unification ceremony.

Further overseas bookings saw the Band spend six days in Poland in 1991, a visit centred on the Krakow Music Festival, and an excursion to Canada for the 125th Nova Scotia International Tattoo the following year.

In 1993 the Division staged its last Beating Retreat parade on Horse Guards, and the next year the Royal Tournament witnessed the last ever performance by the four Bands of the Light Division, before they were merged to form the new Band demanded under Options for Change.

The Salamanca Band

Bandmaster Burton moved from the 2nd Battalion to lead the new Band, and spent the next four and a half years based in Germany. It played every year at the Corps Commander's concert in Sonthofen, appeared at the Halle Munsterland massed bands show, and made visits to Belgium and Holland.

Returning to England in 1989, the Salamanca Band found itself busily engaged on regimental duties but also played for such events as the Liberation Parade in Guernsey in 1992. The same year it played in the massed bands of the Light Division, beating retreat at the historic depot in Winchester, before the depot was transformed into the Army Training Regiment, Winchester.

Following the merger of the bands after the 1994 Royal Tournament, the new divisional Band made its debut beating retreat at the Nato headquarters in Belgium. It then moved to Cyprus.

The Corunna Band, Berlin, 1991