Focus On The Bands: Vanderbilt Game

Vanderbilt University "Spirit of Gold" Marching Band

Vanderbilt's band sported that beauty-queen sash thing that's favored a lot more in the South and high school bands than is cottoned to here in the Big Ten. I wasn't as early for this game as usual, so I thought that I might have missed their pre-game performance, which was disappointing to me, but then they didn't march a halftime show either. Vanderbilt came all the way from Nashville with a pep band. They weren't very large, nor were they loud. They didn't even stay for a postgame set with the MMB. They make Indiana's Marching Hundred seem impressive.

MMB

For the rest of the season, assume the following comments to be valid: The musicianship is excellent, the marching is so-so (especially on entries in pre-game), and I wish the band was louder. That said, today's show (Led Zeppelin) was very good. I whole-heartedly approve of pandering to the student section, because they seem to be the only part of the stadium to respond to anything with more than *vague grumble*. And Zep rulz!

The biggest change to this year's band is that they're back in the corner of the endzone at the bottom of the student section, where they were for almost all of my youth before being moved to the 15-yard line opposite the students shortly before I began playing in the band.

In Section 8, Row 85, the move back is welcomed. Before, you couldn't really hear much of anything. Putting the band directly in the corner of the stadium gives them much better coverage when they play and puts the student section directly adjacent to their cheers. Good call.