Damn good Ipod...

This past weekend was the Penn v Columbia Football Game. As usual, the band was out in full swing along with some extras who tagged along for the ride. Since Penn was wise enough to put Parents' Weekend over an away game, the band hosted its own Parents' Weekend so the progenitors of the band could get a first hand glimpse of why their kids aren't doing their homework.


To start off was pregame. Something that we rehearsed many times before, even an extra time at field rehearse to much chagrin. Well, let's see what happened...



Entrance
BEAUTIFUL! God I love doing this. A really good contrast to Columbia's "Take the Field then take a musical dump" entrance. Though, they did have some sweet herald trumpets.

PENN
To start off with, the P was half a yardline too in-field. The E was dead on, thanks drummers.
The big problem was the two N's; quite the interesting evolution. It's a good thing we sounded good, cause we looked kinda funny doing this formation. There needs to be more than 10 people who actually know where to go. In fact, it needs to be EVERYONE. We will work on this on Monday and Wednesday

Highball
Great! Good symmetry drummers, but try to get both ends on a yardline. The phasing wasn't even too bad.

Big P
Once again great. Drummers, 10 yard lines please. Look at that, we have flags! Some nice flavor, though could use a little more coordination.

Banner
Looks great. Can't hear the flutes/clarinets at all, not even on their part in the trio. Rip that part out guys!

Halftime


Our show was a perfect response to Columbia's "Philly's the ugliest/suckiest city in the nation" show. The crowd especially caught on to this as heard in their cheers after our jokes. Don't quite know why the Columbia Band stays on the field after they play.

Bagel
Props to Noah for making his family run to the sideline, too bad there wasn't enough time for Pushups. This looked more like a football than a bagel, but that's not our fault. Also, I had to yell Halt way too many times. Drummers need to be listening for that. Yeah horns!

Ipod
Probably one of our more complicated formations and it turned out great! Hey, and people actually figured out it was an Ipod. Slow Ride was....slow i guess. It got better though. Awesome job on the guitar solo guys, if anything that was the one thing to get right no matter what.

PBR
P was 5 yards too far out-field and this proved bad for the proceeding R that was built off of it. Eeeeeeh, chops! need some more tunage! I know it was a long day of playing, but still. Woodwinds, good to hear you! Bones, do NOT gliss those last 4 measures; very cheesey. I hate cutting this song, it's just not meant to be.

R+B
There's that stray R with the interesting extension thanks to our auxillary; should've played Viva las Vegas instead. Went a little fast, but fine. Nice touch bells, what a hilarious part.

SUBG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc0POzeuLvw

(Note, I recommend watching this one in high quality. To do so, visit the link under the vid and click "Watch in High Quality')

As requested, we played Since U've Been Gone for the student section. One of the best responses we've ever gotten from a crowd. Keep an eye on 80s guy, he's fun to watch. We sounded great on this even though we were extremely tired. Well done! Endurance props!

Overall, an interesting gameday. We clearly need some refreshers in the pregame department. Nothing a little wrote memorization can't fix. We had some snafus in the stands: some my fault, some not. I'll chalk it up to parents for now. It seems we're at a point that most of us are very comfortable doing our shows, which is fantastic! However, we can't just be on autopilot and expect someone to tell us where to go all the time, especially on the field or even worse from me on the podium. Freshmen, don't let this become a habit like it is for some upper classmen. Veteran Bandos, don't expect anything less from your peers or the freshmen. In a band of our size, everyone is accountable and even one clueless person can scar a formation.

Don't take this as too negative. It's good to be at this point so early on in the season so we have time to fix it quickly. I'm still having an awesome time leading you guys so don't change too much. Looking forward to actually doing the Lord Glozion show on Saturday. Let's make Yale bend to his will.