Band-related New Info Traditions

[Let'sGoZips94]

We haven't visited this topic in a while, but, to anyone in the marching band, and everyone part of the ZipsNation, what pregame plans is the university putting together? We'll be opening the Info before we know it, so I'm assuming our athletic department has spent countless hours, and many sleepless nights, researching, brainstorming and planning the entire game day experience, right? Pregame band session in the JAR? Military-style, drum-cadence-driven parade from the JAR to the Info? Anything? Again, I haven't heard a peep on this subject in a very long time and the silence has me more than a bit concerned.

If I can get jalapenos with my nachos @ Infocision I will consider the University's planning to have been a major success.

Doors on the bathroom stalls would be a nice tradition to start.....

They have to start the bathroom stall tradition before they add doors.

[ZippyRulz]

I still would like something like this flying around campus before/during games...I think it would add to the atmosphere and would be appropriate for Akron.http://www.rcblimp.com/helium/aeroblimp_30.htm

[Blue & Gold]

Though it's a no-brainer to even mention this, it would be fantasic if Goodyear would fly the blimp over the Info on gamedays.

[Z.I.P.]

i kind of hope they get rid of the big inflatable helmet they had at the rubber bowl...i always thought it was a bit cheesy. they gotta keep the fireworks tho, even use more!

Is the team supposed to run on to the field from the new end zone facility? I like it when teams gather in an end zone & mosh around & hit each other and scream at each other & then, following the team captains, bum rush the 50 yard line through a tunnel of band members & mosh some more! Dang, I've got goosebumps just sitting here. I am so ready for football!!!

People of Akron: I know we have not heard from Uncle Tonga much recently, but let it be known that, the Polynesian gods willing, this season will commence the beginning of the Poly-Akron tradition. Monster Hands Tonga will lead the troops (and fans are more than invited to join in) in the first performance of the Zips Fighting Haka. You've seen the Hawaii Warriors Haka, the BYU Cougar Haka, well just wait till you see dat Roo Haka! Does Zippy have a tongue he can stick out? Way out!

[Zipsrifle]

One thing I've noticed about the UA band when compared to the UofM band or OSU band is that the UofA band isn't always in character. By this a mean, walking into the RB before the game, they would be standing around with stuff laying on the ground, they weren't in a real line and they were talking to each other. It appears to me that once the UofM band was in the vacinity of the stadium, they were ALWAYS in a straight line, at attention and in character. No milling around, etc. Also, my wife made a good point, drop the sheet music on your instrument, it is distracting. I love the skull session idea and once the band leaves....wherever, they need to be in character the ENTIRE TIME!!!!

[tbozeglav]

Though it's a no-brainer to even mention this, it would be fantasic if Goodyear would fly the blimp over the Info on gamedays.

I don't see any reason they couldnt... it'd definitely give us some more respectability if we get the goodyear blimp to come out for our home games.

[bandzip]

One thing I've noticed about the UA band when compared to the UofM band or OSU band is that the UofA band isn't always in character. By this a mean, walking into the RB before the game, they would be standing around with stuff laying on the ground, they weren't in a real line and they were talking to each other. It appears to me that once the UofM band was in the vacinity of the stadium, they were ALWAYS in a straight line, at attention and in character. No milling around, etc. Also, my wife made a good point, drop the sheet music on your instrument, it is distracting. I love the skull session idea and once the band leaves....wherever, they need to be in character the ENTIRE TIME!!!!

I agree with the character comment, but you also have to realize that there have been days where we get to the Rubber Bowl at 9:00 am for a 2:00 pm game. They would bus us over for a gameday rehearsal and then we had no where to go for a couple hours prior to the game. They'd feed us and then we would sit in the stands for an hour and a half to two hours before we finally went to warm up. The problem with getting rid of the music is asking almost 200 kids to learn a new show and drill for a game in less than a week. Most of the band members have their drill moves written in their music.

[RootforRoo44]

One thing I've noticed about the UA band when compared to the UofM band or OSU band is that the UofA band isn't always in character. By this a mean, walking into the RB before the game, they would be standing around with stuff laying on the ground, they weren't in a real line and they were talking to each other. It appears to me that once the UofM band was in the vacinity of the stadium, they were ALWAYS in a straight line, at attention and in character. No milling around, etc. Also, my wife made a good point, drop the sheet music on your instrument, it is distracting. I love the skull session idea and once the band leaves....wherever, they need to be in character the ENTIRE TIME!!!!

Amen, exactly...they need to just be more professional. They are a D1 Marching Band, whoever's in charge needs to get them acting like one. The music on the instruments is a bit small time/high school but that's not as important as just staying in character. They need to know that they are representative of the University just as the phenomenal football stadium we will have as well as the (hopefully) very good football team. LETS GET EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE AND LETS BE "THE" PLACE FOR OHIO COLLEGE FOOTBALL.

[RootforRoo44]

One thing I've noticed about the UA band when compared to the UofM band or OSU band is that the UofA band isn't always in character. By this a mean, walking into the RB before the game, they would be standing around with stuff laying on the ground, they weren't in a real line and they were talking to each other. It appears to me that once the UofM band was in the vacinity of the stadium, they were ALWAYS in a straight line, at attention and in character. No milling around, etc. Also, my wife made a good point, drop the sheet music on your instrument, it is distracting. I love the skull session idea and once the band leaves....wherever, they need to be in character the ENTIRE TIME!!!!

I agree with the character comment, but you also have to realize that there have been days where we get to the Rubber Bowl at 9:00 am for a 2:00 pm game. They would bus us over for a gameday rehearsal and then we had no where to go for a couple hours prior to the game. They'd feed us and then we would sit in the stands for an hour and a half to two hours before we finally went to warm up. The problem with getting rid of the music is asking almost 200 kids to learn a new show and drill for a game in less than a week. Most of the band members have their drill moves written in their music.

1) EVERY major college marching band has to show up early for games. Heck i know personally that OSU, OU, FSU, FU all are out and ready hours before kickoff for every home game. They play a pregame show somewhere on campus and march to the stadium and are in there pretty early. For homecoming, the band at Ohio U has a morning parade downtown through the streets at 9am (for a 12 or 2pm) start. They march all the way past all the bars and hundreds if not thousands of people are already out at the bars drinking and starting that gameday party. (BTW, that's what we need to do, at least down the ZipStrip, or what's left it.)2)The music issue is not as important as i said before, but come on it's not that hard. I play/played multiple instruments and if you practice enough you can get most of the notes down. The drills, that's a different story but still you have most major marching bands doing it fine. Not to mention the ones (OU again for example) that do a different show EVERY WEEK and do it without music/personal notes on their instruments AND do very complicated marching drills. Now you are going to tell me that we cannot have band members that can dedicate their time to practicing and preparing for gamedays enough so that they can march 1/5th of what OU does and do it without music? That's just ridiculous.

[ksu sucks]

1) EVERY major college marching band has to show up early for games. Heck i know personally that OSU, OU, FSU, FU all are out and ready hours before kickoff for every home game. They play a pregame show somewhere on campus and march to the stadium and are in there pretty early. For homecoming, the band at Ohio U has a morning parade downtown through the streets at 9am (for a 12 or 2pm) start. They march all the way past all the bars and hundreds if not thousands of people are already out at the bars drinking and starting that gameday party. (BTW, that's what we need to do, at least down the ZipStrip, or what's left it.)

Yeah, and imagine if the city of Akron celebrated a zips game the way OU fans(mostly students) do. Athens is a little ho hum college town in the middle of nowhere, while Akron is a city of over 200 K. So I guess the question is...Athens? Or Akron? hmm....

[zipseuph]

1) EVERY major college marching band has to show up early for games. Heck i know personally that OSU, OU, FSU, FU all are out and ready hours before kickoff for every home game. They play a pregame show somewhere on campus and march to the stadium and are in there pretty early. For homecoming, the band at Ohio U has a morning parade downtown through the streets at 9am (for a 12 or 2pm) start. They march all the way past all the bars and hundreds if not thousands of people are already out at the bars drinking and starting that gameday party. (BTW, that's what we need to do, at least down the ZipStrip, or what's left it.)2)The music issue is not as important as i said before, but come on it's not that hard. I play/played multiple instruments and if you practice enough you can get most of the notes down. The drills, that's a different story but still you have most major marching bands doing it fine. Not to mention the ones (OU again for example) that do a different show EVERY WEEK and do it without music/personal notes on their instruments AND do very complicated marching drills. Now you are going to tell me that we cannot have band members that can dedicate their time to practicing and preparing for gamedays enough so that they can march 1/5th of what OU does and do it without music? That's just ridiculous.

1) not every major college band has nothing to do for practicly the entire time they're there and with the down time they do have they have a place to duck out of sight2)what OU does is flush and trash so for them to remember the notes is like asking a 5th grader to remember what the color blue is first of all second the UA band only has three days a week for class. now if the U bumped up the credits and added a few days things would probably be different but to learn one show perfome it then learn another show in another week and keep the old show fresh from last week in order to perform it at some high school band concert thing and then go back to the new show again your gonna need a little help with only three days a week. as far as pregame goes they should have that down.I think a lot of the standing around issue will be solved once we are on campus and have some places to duck out of sight insted of just standing at attention for hours on end.

[bandzip]

1) EVERY major college marching band has to show up early for games. Heck i know personally that OSU, OU, FSU, FU all are out and ready hours before kickoff for every home game. They play a pregame show somewhere on campus and march to the stadium and are in there pretty early. For homecoming, the band at Ohio U has a morning parade downtown through the streets at 9am (for a 12 or 2pm) start. They march all the way past all the bars and hundreds if not thousands of people are already out at the bars drinking and starting that gameday party. (BTW, that's what we need to do, at least down the ZipStrip, or what's left it.)2)The music issue is not as important as i said before, but come on it's not that hard. I play/played multiple instruments and if you practice enough you can get most of the notes down. The drills, that's a different story but still you have most major marching bands doing it fine. Not to mention the ones (OU again for example) that do a different show EVERY WEEK and do it without music/personal notes on their instruments AND do very complicated marching drills. Now you are going to tell me that we cannot have band members that can dedicate their time to practicing and preparing for gamedays enough so that they can march 1/5th of what OU does and do it without music? That's just ridiculous.

1) not every major college band has nothing to do for practicly the entire time they're there and with the down time they do have they have a place to duck out of sight2)what OU does is flush and trash so for them to remember the notes is like asking a 5th grader to remember what the color blue is first of all second the UA band only has three days a week for class. now if the U bumped up the credits and added a few days things would probably be different but to learn one show perfome it then learn another show in another week and keep the old show fresh from last week in order to perform it at some high school band concert thing and then go back to the new show again your gonna need a little help with only three days a week. as far as pregame goes they should have that down.I think a lot of the standing around issue will be solved once we are on campus and have some places to duck out of sight insted of just standing at attention for hours on end.

Someone who knows what they're talking about! That's pretty much exactly what I was trying to say. Usually when we do pregame the only people who use music are the alternates who are filling in for people who aren't there. We only have three hour and a half rehearsals a week to learn 3 to 4 new songs and drill for all of them.

[RootforRoo44]

1) EVERY major college marching band has to show up early for games. Heck i know personally that OSU, OU, FSU, FU all are out and ready hours before kickoff for every home game. They play a pregame show somewhere on campus and march to the stadium and are in there pretty early. For homecoming, the band at Ohio U has a morning parade downtown through the streets at 9am (for a 12 or 2pm) start. They march all the way past all the bars and hundreds if not thousands of people are already out at the bars drinking and starting that gameday party. (BTW, that's what we need to do, at least down the ZipStrip, or what's left it.)

Yeah, and imagine if the city of Akron celebrated a zips game the way OU fans(mostly students) do. Athens is a little ho hum college town in the middle of nowhere, while Akron is a city of over 200 K. So I guess the question is...Athens? Or Akron? hmm....

When it come to having a band that acts professional i choose Athens. Their football team may be terrible but man do they at least look like a big time college football atmosphere.

[ziptrumpet87]

1) EVERY major college marching band has to show up early for games. Heck i know personally that OSU, OU, FSU, FU all are out and ready hours before kickoff for every home game. They play a pregame show somewhere on campus and march to the stadium and are in there pretty early. For homecoming, the band at Ohio U has a morning parade downtown through the streets at 9am (for a 12 or 2pm) start. They march all the way past all the bars and hundreds if not thousands of people are already out at the bars drinking and starting that gameday party. (BTW, that's what we need to do, at least down the ZipStrip, or what's left it.)2)The music issue is not as important as i said before, but come on it's not that hard. I play/played multiple instruments and if you practice enough you can get most of the notes down. The drills, that's a different story but still you have most major marching bands doing it fine. Not to mention the ones (OU again for example) that do a different show EVERY WEEK and do it without music/personal notes on their instruments AND do very complicated marching drills. Now you are going to tell me that we cannot have band members that can dedicate their time to practicing and preparing for gamedays enough so that they can march 1/5th of what OU does and do it without music? That's just ridiculous.

1) not every major college band has nothing to do for practicly the entire time they're there and with the down time they do have they have a place to duck out of sight2)what OU does is flush and trash so for them to remember the notes is like asking a 5th grader to remember what the color blue is first of all second the UA band only has three days a week for class. now if the U bumped up the credits and added a few days things would probably be different but to learn one show perfome it then learn another show in another week and keep the old show fresh from last week in order to perform it at some high school band concert thing and then go back to the new show again your gonna need a little help with only three days a week. as far as pregame goes they should have that down.I think a lot of the standing around issue will be solved once we are on campus and have some places to duck out of sight insted of just standing at attention for hours on end.

Someone who knows what they're talking about! That's pretty much exactly what I was trying to say. Usually when we do pregame the only people who use music are the alternates who are filling in for people who aren't there. We only have three hour and a half rehearsals a week to learn 3 to 4 new songs and drill for all of them.

Sorry, but I think some of the rookie band are soft and a bit coddled. Click here.We memorized music and had new shows each week (even in my high school band).

[RootforRoo44]

1) EVERY major college marching band has to show up early for games. Heck i know personally that OSU, OU, FSU, FU all are out and ready hours before kickoff for every home game. They play a pregame show somewhere on campus and march to the stadium and are in there pretty early. For homecoming, the band at Ohio U has a morning parade downtown through the streets at 9am (for a 12 or 2pm) start. They march all the way past all the bars and hundreds if not thousands of people are already out at the bars drinking and starting that gameday party. (BTW, that's what we need to do, at least down the ZipStrip, or what's left it.)2)The music issue is not as important as i said before, but come on it's not that hard. I play/played multiple instruments and if you practice enough you can get most of the notes down. The drills, that's a different story but still you have most major marching bands doing it fine. Not to mention the ones (OU again for example) that do a different show EVERY WEEK and do it without music/personal notes on their instruments AND do very complicated marching drills. Now you are going to tell me that we cannot have band members that can dedicate their time to practicing and preparing for gamedays enough so that they can march 1/5th of what OU does and do it without music? That's just ridiculous.

1) not every major college band has nothing to do for practicly the entire time they're there and with the down time they do have they have a place to duck out of sight2)what OU does is flush and trash so for them to remember the notes is like asking a 5th grader to remember what the color blue is first of all second the UA band only has three days a week for class. now if the U bumped up the credits and added a few days things would probably be different but to learn one show perfome it then learn another show in another week and keep the old show fresh from last week in order to perform it at some high school band concert thing and then go back to the new show again your gonna need a little help with only three days a week. as far as pregame goes they should have that down.I think a lot of the standing around issue will be solved once we are on campus and have some places to duck out of sight insted of just standing at attention for hours on end.

There is no point in attacking them because they are 5 times more respected than the "Pride of Ohio". Now i'm a life long Zips fan, both parents are alumni, i haven't missed a home football/basketball game in 6 years and have been to almost every home game since 1990 or so, so trust me i LOVE the Zips. But the truth is i've always been somewhat embarassed of our marching band, no offense to you individual members but the University just doesn't care about the band it seems. I think you guys should be on my side and see that being like the Marching 110 or Columbus State's band or the spirit of Troy would be a GREAT thing. Take a look at these lists and tell me what they all have in common?link 1 link 2link 3Gotta love Wikipedia too:Akron Marching BandOhio U Marching BandOhio State Marching BandTennessee Marching Bandetc...The fact is, Akron has no respect. Nearly every band mentioned on those lists have great football tradition so it shows you how amazing it is that the Ohio Marching 110 has such respect because their football program is garbage! Also knocking on other bands that are clearly better in most every way will not solve that problem. Akron needs to get with the picture and get some sort of tradition started and fund you guys. It's sad that we have a lack of professionalism as well as a lack of excitement for our Marching band because it truly does translate onto the field. It really can bring the crowd into it more and that's what we need.

[RootforRoo44]

1) EVERY major college marching band has to show up early for games. Heck i know personally that OSU, OU, FSU, FU all are out and ready hours before kickoff for every home game. They play a pregame show somewhere on campus and march to the stadium and are in there pretty early. For homecoming, the band at Ohio U has a morning parade downtown through the streets at 9am (for a 12 or 2pm) start. They march all the way past all the bars and hundreds if not thousands of people are already out at the bars drinking and starting that gameday party. (BTW, that's what we need to do, at least down the ZipStrip, or what's left it.)2)The music issue is not as important as i said before, but come on it's not that hard. I play/played multiple instruments and if you practice enough you can get most of the notes down. The drills, that's a different story but still you have most major marching bands doing it fine. Not to mention the ones (OU again for example) that do a different show EVERY WEEK and do it without music/personal notes on their instruments AND do very complicated marching drills. Now you are going to tell me that we cannot have band members that can dedicate their time to practicing and preparing for gamedays enough so that they can march 1/5th of what OU does and do it without music? That's just ridiculous.

1) not every major college band has nothing to do for practicly the entire time they're there and with the down time they do have they have a place to duck out of sight2)what OU does is flush and trash so for them to remember the notes is like asking a 5th grader to remember what the color blue is first of all second the UA band only has three days a week for class. now if the U bumped up the credits and added a few days things would probably be different but to learn one show perfome it then learn another show in another week and keep the old show fresh from last week in order to perform it at some high school band concert thing and then go back to the new show again your gonna need a little help with only three days a week. as far as pregame goes they should have that down.I think a lot of the standing around issue will be solved once we are on campus and have some places to duck out of sight insted of just standing at attention for hours on end.

Someone who knows what they're talking about! That's pretty much exactly what I was trying to say. Usually when we do pregame the only people who use music are the alternates who are filling in for people who aren't there. We only have three hour and a half rehearsals a week to learn 3 to 4 new songs and drill for all of them.

Sorry, but I think some of the rookie band are soft and a bit coddled. Click here.We memorized music and had new shows each week (even in my high school band).

Well let's cut the crappy excuses and get back to the way it was for when you were an Akron band member. It seems like the drills were more complicated back then as well. I dont know if it's the band director or the lack of funding or both but it NEEDS to change!

[zipseuph]

There is no point in attacking them because they are 5 times more respected than the "Pride of Ohio". Now i'm a life long Zips fan, both parents are alumni, i haven't missed a home football/basketball game in 6 years and have been to almost every home game since 1990 or so, so trust me i LOVE the Zips. But the truth is i've always been somewhat embarassed of our marching band, no offense to you individual members but the University just doesn't care about the band it seems. I think you guys should be on my side and see that being like the Marching 110 or Columbus State's band or the spirit of Troy would be a GREAT thing.

first of all I am very much on your side in thinking the band needs more support and also think that they need more time to practice. as far as "the rookie band being soft" give them a break they've had an intern director for the past 2 years now and both years they were different people. I agree that the marching band should stray away from classical music seeing as we have three different concert bands for that but like I said before I don't wany them to turn into a group that just plays simply cheesy music all the time (like the band out east) they should be more profesional and again having a place to duck out of sight will help with that so there not just standing around for hours on end. it did upset me that they were goofing off during the rubber bowl closing ceremoney and I don't like how they file (mill) back into the stands. I too have a lot of problems with the way the band is run but I like the drill style they just need to find a way to bring more energey into it (sorry but swinging the horns is a terrible idea that sends the music to hell) again this style of marching is all about finding that fine line between musicality and entertainment.and please point out how I'm wrong about OU being flush and trash. they dance around (flush) but in doing so play jr high music (trash)

[RootforRoo44]

There is no point in attacking them because they are 5 times more respected than the "Pride of Ohio". Now i'm a life long Zips fan, both parents are alumni, i haven't missed a home football/basketball game in 6 years and have been to almost every home game since 1990 or so, so trust me i LOVE the Zips. But the truth is i've always been somewhat embarassed of our marching band, no offense to you individual members but the University just doesn't care about the band it seems. I think you guys should be on my side and see that being like the Marching 110 or Columbus State's band or the spirit of Troy would be a GREAT thing.

first of all I am very much on your side in thinking the band needs more support and also think that they need more time to practice. as far as "the rookie band being soft" give them a break they've had an intern director for the past 2 years now and both years they were different people. I agree that the marching band should stray away from classical music seeing as we have three different concert bands for that but like I said before I don't wany them to turn into a group that just plays simply cheesy music all the time (like the band out east) they should be more profesional and again having a place to duck out of sight will help with that so there not just standing around for hours on end. it did upset me that they were goofing off during the rubber bowl closing ceremoney and I don't like how they file (mill) back into the stands. I too have a lot of problems with the way the band is run but I like the drill style they just need to find a way to bring more energey into it (sorry but swinging the horns is a terrible idea that sends the music to hell) again this style of marching is all about finding that fine line between musicality and entertainment.and please point out how I'm wrong about OU being flush and trash. they dance around (flush) but in doing so play jr high music (trash)

haha so i guess we are basically on the same page. The only things i have to add is: Why the heck did they let some director skip town for 2 years? What does that say about the band that they just let someone else run this thing for the last 2 years when we have a guy that obviously does not have the time to put into the band?Also I think the 110 is the most entertaining band i've ever seen and i've seen many of the best (literally). Their "flush" is awesome, i like seeing a band in unison and energetic that's what they are supposed to be! BTW, I never was in marching band or anything so i'm just a plain old football fan, though i may be a little more studied on the subject than the average fan because i have some college marching band friends/girlfriend. Now about them playing trash, i dont see it or should i say hear it. As an "average fan" i see a band that is LOUD (WAYYYY louder than Akron) and one that plays very well while moving around and exciting the crowd more than our crowd gets excited by you guys. It's really uncomparable right now, maybe/hopefully things change. They need to.

[Blue & Gold]

Wow. It sounds like our band needs an entire change in mindset, or "culture" and that's a problem that runs very deep. It sounds like the band needs a new director to gradually (or not so gradually) instill a different personality amongst the group.Anyway, band members, please know that no one is picking on the band. I just think that everyone on this board has a passion for the University of Akron and desperately wants to see it represented in a grand fashion. Most of us grew weary of UA's half-baked view of themselves long ago. That's part of our collective frustration - when it comes to UA, oftentimes the small-time mindset is internal - almost as if we ZipsNation fans have bigger dreams for the university than even the university does. (That's why Proenza is a demi-god in our eyes.)On a different note, I like the idea of bringing back the big tire drum. Purdue has their big drum, maybe we could have ours as well?Purdue's Big Drum

[Blue & Gold]

Also I think the 110 is the most entertaining band i've ever seen and i've seen many of the best (literally). Their "flush" is awesome, i like seeing a band in unison and energetic that's what they are supposed to be! BTW, I never was in marching band or anything so i'm just a plain old football fan, though i may be a little more studied on the subject than the average fan because i have some college marching band friends/girlfriend. Now about them playing trash, i dont see it or should i say hear it. As an "average fan" i see a band that is LOUD (WAYYYY louder than Akron) and one that plays very well while moving around and exciting the crowd more than our crowd gets excited by you guys. It's really uncomparable right now, maybe/hopefully things change. They need to.

I think a good illustration may be rock-n-roll. Any trained musician will tell you rock-n-roll is sophomoric, crap music. But when I'm going to a show at Blossom (or at the future Akron Arena), do I care that rock-n-roll is easy to play? No! I want to rock out.So it is with a marching band. We're at a friggin' football game. We want adrenaline. We don't want Schubert.

[RootforRoo44]

Also I think the 110 is the most entertaining band i've ever seen and i've seen many of the best (literally). Their "flush" is awesome, i like seeing a band in unison and energetic that's what they are supposed to be! BTW, I never was in marching band or anything so i'm just a plain old football fan, though i may be a little more studied on the subject than the average fan because i have some college marching band friends/girlfriend. Now about them playing trash, i dont see it or should i say hear it. As an "average fan" i see a band that is LOUD (WAYYYY louder than Akron) and one that plays very well while moving around and exciting the crowd more than our crowd gets excited by you guys. It's really uncomparable right now, maybe/hopefully things change. They need to.

I think a good illustration may be rock-n-roll. Any trained musician will tell you rock-n-roll is sophomoric, crap music. But when I'm going to a show at Blossom (or at the future Akron Arena), do I care that rock-n-roll is easy to play? No! I want to rock out.So it is with a marching band. We're at a friggin' football game. We want adrenaline. We don't want Schubert.

As someone who is taking "Bach to Rock" class let me state how true that is. It has given me newfound hatred for all things classical. I appreciated it before, but after watching/listening to a 43 minute long orchestral performance last night followed by lecture and a test i think it's safe to say i hate it all. Rock music is where it's at, i'll take the dumbed down stuff.

[zipseuph]

Also I think the 110 is the most entertaining band i've ever seen and i've seen many of the best (literally). Their "flush" is awesome, i like seeing a band in unison and energetic that's what they are supposed to be! BTW, I never was in marching band or anything so i'm just a plain old football fan, though i may be a little more studied on the subject than the average fan because i have some college marching band friends/girlfriend. Now about them playing trash, i dont see it or should i say hear it. As an "average fan" i see a band that is LOUD (WAYYYY louder than Akron) and one that plays very well while moving around and exciting the crowd more than our crowd gets excited by you guys. It's really uncomparable right now, maybe/hopefully things change. They need to.

I think a good illustration may be rock-n-roll. Any trained musician will tell you rock-n-roll is sophomoric, crap music. But when I'm going to a show at Blossom (or at the future Akron Arena), do I care that rock-n-roll is easy to play? No! I want to rock out.So it is with a marching band. We're at a friggin' football game. We want adrenaline. We don't want Schubert.

and like I've been saying all day they need to find a balance between the two. yes go ahead and play something to rock out to but don't dull it down to the point that the tubas are playing next to nothing. it would almost kill the band to do that because then you have a bunch of tuba/low brass people who basically stand around and do nothing then you have to try to recruit low brass people at which point in time it would be like recruiting wide receivers to a team that just runs. but popular music yes play away.as far as the director taking two years off I think you will actually like whats going on there root. he is earning his doctorate at Michigan State University and working with there marching band and pep bands there. so when he gets back next year he will have that experience and back ground to bring into this band.it is hard for me to put my pride to the side and realize that this band doesn't play gold and $hit rainbows but I will do it because I know you all want to see the band succeed but no matter what we do or how bad we get I can at least rely on the fact that we will never be as bad as Can't.

[zipseuph]

but anyways what new traditions do you guys wanna see

[ZachTheZip]

but anyways what new traditions do you guys wanna see

Winning!

[Captain Kangaroo]

but anyways what new traditions do you guys wanna see

Quality tailgating! Period! If the environment is a traditional campus tailgate environment, Infocision will be successful. If people are hassled and the tailgating is micromanaged, it will turn people off and kill attendance.Do not underestimate how critical the handling of tailgating is to overall attendance. The University gets one chance to make a first impression with the community. If they blow it, it will take years to recover.