A band's job is to get the crowd amped up. tOSU does it best, their fans (jackasses that they are) get amped and ravenous when they enter the field. It's what aggy wishes could happen. Consider their job accomplished.
LHB SOB is right on. DiNino made sure the lines were straight (unlike now) and they did different things each week, even if some of it were the same. It seems to be the same stuff every week. Maybe its just me. I think the band is better during the game than at half time.
First of all; there's no such thing as a Texas Aggie, 2ndly - they are not Fightin', only wishin', and 3rdly they aren't military - just toy soldiers.
I had a class once with two girls who were in the LHB. They complained incessantly about having to give up their weekends whenever they had to travel to an away game. And they threw an absolute hissy fit when they found out the bowl game was in San Diego because it messed up their holiday plans. I realize that not all LHB members feel that way, but it still kinda put a damper on my impression of the band. Playing at a Longhorn football game, and more especially away games and bowl games, should be considered a privilege. Besides that, you should know when you audition for the band that for the fall semester, you basically belong to the football team. Wherever they go, you go. There are a ton of people who would give anything for an all-expenses paid trip to a UT football game that they wouldn't normally get to attend. All of that just made me feel like these guys may be pretty talented musicians, but they don't care at all about being a real college marching band.
Arkansas and Georgia's bands are both top notch in ym opinion. Texas Tech is a very loud band as it seems they always play at a very loud volume.
I saw Arkansas in Fayetteville when we played them there a few years ago. Pig Band = Teh suck. I will also vouch for the vast majority of the band being Longhorn crazy. A couple girl's bitching about the time commitment does not an entire band make.
bassale, I can guarantee the majority of LHB does not feel that way. There are people in all of the organizations that probably aren't 100% into everything Longhorn football, but there are almost 400 people in LHB that spend more time doing things for the games than the organizations. Not to take the two girls side because I ******* love anything Longhorn sports and have been in the Basketball, Volleyball, and LHB for four years, but think about this. There are three major holidays in football season, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. LHB misses at least two of the three every year we make a bowl game. It kinda sucks when you're in college and can't spend the holidays with your family.
This is the best post i have seen yet. "Nobody cares," yet we have 3+ pages of comments on this article dated last fall!
i'm pretty sure that you don't even have to be a rice student to be a member of the MOB. should be an automatic DQ.
I think there are a hand full of bands that do MOB like shows. I'm not sure the MOB was even the first to come up with such a tradition. I'm as burnt orange biased as they come, but sorry people... our band is not great. Seriously, what sets them apart from anyone else?
Horn83, How do you measure band talent? It seems fairly subjective to say "we have more talented musicians". How can you compare our band members to Michigan's?
This is easily the most entertaining post of the offseason. I noticed this same site has posted a 2008 college football preview as well.
The cold hard truth for the "Showband of the Southwest" The students in our band are loyal, top notch students and fans. Our traditional songs for school and state are majestic. Through the years our halftime performances are the absolute "gayest" with the crappiest music selection. Nobody gives a **** about "showtunes" or wants to hear soundtracks from 50's movies. Okay, maybe the 3,000 blue hairs who can't stand up for the defense still like it some and the 300 band member parents will like whatever they play, but the 86,000 rest of us are thinking to ourselves (man I wish our band would do ______) or (remember when the mob did _______). Whatever they are currently doing isn't good enough to hold hardly anyone's attention. We aren't "classic and traditional" in an easily recognizable way like other bands....nor are we "hip and innovative" like others. We are just somewhere in between, lost in a long list of the crappiest decisions for halftime entertainment. I kind of feel sorry for the band members, because you know most of them are thinking "WTF" when they get their marching orders etc. "Yay!!! more West Side Story" or "Awsome, Gershwin again" or "wow were really going to rock them all out now....Yesterday by the Beatles!!!" ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Well, OK. True, but I try to accomplish all of that during the other teams band's performance. So after crimping one out, scoring some chips and sody water... The truth is, the only half-time I find myself drawn to is when the alumni band performs with the LHB because I love the sound of them together, and they play traditionally good stuff.
I propose a 16 band playoff format, with the BCS conference champions getting the auto-bid. The at large bands will be selected by the quality of the twirlers cleavage as interpreted by a panel of 3 drunken Frat guys, 3 female ex-band members, 3 ex-players and 4 t-shirt fans. Bands will be seeded 1-16 based upon the average weight of the flag squad, from lowest to highest. Military bands that have no flag team, can attempt to squeeze nuts at the duration of one minute per average pound of competitors avg. flag member weight. Scoring will be based upon audience noise level in decibels at the completion of each song. Movie soundtracks from the 1960's or prior receive a 5 decibel penalty. Rock songs that can get 25% or more of the audience to sing along get a 10 decibel bonus. Any music whose title ends in the key it will be played (example. Motzart's Peckerus Pullus in A minor) will have to compete with Hell's Bells on the loudspeaker, and the band members will have to march with one shoe off. All ties will be settled by the following. 1. Size of state flag present. 2. Number of instrunments that the drum major can successfully play the theme from "Star Wars" without a mistake. 3. The avg. number of miles traveled for Bowl games over the past 4 seasons.
I don't normally post on here, but I had a couple of thoughts. About the show selection that LHB does, the members form a committee to pick what will be played the following year. Yes, we do get excited about most of the selections. I understand that you may want to hear Tool, Nirvana, or Usher, but a lot of that music doesn't translate well to the field, especially when it's played by 375 mostly "white" band members. That said, the music selections are picked keeping in mind what the audience (home side older people, except for that one show that's played to the student side) AND band members want. As far as LHB's comparison with other bands, they do fair very well. Being in the band was never about being good, just having fun (for the most part). We're not the best and we know it but as far as pure talent goes, nothing in the country really comes close. UNT has a great music performance school, but most performance majors don't do band and the football team doesn't draw the talented musicians in like UT's does. My favorite band I got to witness live was Michigan at the first Rose Bowl. I hold them in higher regards than tOSU Band, and I loved tOSU Band. As an alumni and past LHB soloist I was always curious to listen to the players in the other bands. It's almost a competition of who has the better individual players. I'm not the greatest player in the world but I was always surprised at how much more talent UT had in the band than everywhere else. For example, in the trumpet line, I went down the first 8-9 people closest to me and we all averaged 2-3 years as a Texas All-State member. As a current music educator I can easily tell you there is no way you'll find the same wealth of talent in other places. Unfortunately, the practice time and rehearsal technique doesn't lend itself to a cleaner, more visual performance you can find in a band like Michigan. Also, Michigan and tOSU bands only have drums and brass. They don't have woodwinds, which allows them to create a lot more sound with less people (and play much more in tune, sorry WW players). I know this can come across as subjective, but it's as far away from that as I can make it. We have it good here and are used to it. You go ANYWHERE else in the USA and everybody wants their music programs to be like the ones in Texas. Sorry for those of you reading this that could really care less. I thought I might chime in to try and clarify a few things for those that do. I can tell you that the members of LHB do have a lot of pride in what they do and that includes their undying support for the football team and the university.
