Week 4

September 24, 2011

Well, things have certainly been interesting, to say the least.  It's been a grueling series of weeks for myself and the band and I'm more than happy that next week the team is going away, I'll say that much.  I remember a four-week series ('09 I think) and at the end of it we all need a little time away, even though we'll still be on our 4 day/week rehearsal schedule, things won't be so hectic.  We had our first true one-week show this week and honestly had you not known that piece of information, I don't think you would be able to tell, which shows how great this year's band is.  We had four rehearsals to put this show together, that's all.  They hadn't played the music or taken a step of the drill before Monday at 4pm.  We even had our Friday rehearsal rained out completely.  They were still learning drill this morning at 6am - but then again, you wouldn't have noticed.  It wasn't an easy show either... the band was spread far across the field, and the difficulty of the music was a little more than average.  Frantic week for everyone. 

I'm still not 100%, which makes this health debacle 13 days old.  I felt pretty good today in comparison to last weekend which of course translated to a fairly satisfying performance on the field during pregame today.  I was a little unsure of my footing on landings today, but with my head all stuffed up it's hard to get bearings quickly... really messes with the "air sense".  But that makes it 6/6 in Beaver Stadium on the season and 9/10 overall for the year in-performance, only one miss at Temple, which I couldn't really do anything about.  Tack on last year and that's 26/28 so far.  Not proud of it because I know I could/should have been 100%. 

So, the hot topic this week has been about the "7:1" ratio of band to canned music that was put forth by the "man in the press box" running the "show".  Well, I will say that since that article was published the band conspicuously got quite a bit of playing time today - although I'm hearing that the initial "fan data" coming in has a 2:1 ratio today.  The situation was a lot better though, at least it felt that way.  We had more time to play on offensive drives, we played more often during game breaks, we got more downs on defense.  I also just decided to say "screw it" a few times and play over Zombie Nation on 4th down, or over the Blur "woo-hoo" thing (which I absolutely can't stand), and I noticed a lot of the band and nearby fans egging me on to do that.  It's difficult because we don't to be causing problems or conflict with anyone, and our director believes in that on a high level, and I have respect for what he respects.  I'm told when I can pull up a tune, or when we sit one out.  It's not my/our call.  Today we got more green lights than red lights.  Is it a sign of what's to come?  We can only hope.  I'm excited because now the band will be able to work on more stands tunes in rehearsal (I'm personally hoping I can get Brass Roots, Testify, and a few others going), and we'll be able to showcase more music.  We don't rehearse a lot of it because honestly we haven't played a whole lot in the stands and we can get by with the tunes that we are already familiar with.  With that said, my favorite moment of the day was when they were piping in "Party Rock Anthem" and I look and we're up there on the jumbotron.  Irony?  Ideally, yeah, I should be mum on this issue as to not stir anything up - but if nobody says anything, nothing will ever be done about it, if anything, the situation will get worse.  That's just my take.  I'll stay the course, do what I'm told, pull for the team, do my best with the band, and that's that. 

So many other things I'd rather get to, but I absolutely need to recharge after a long day with a nice nap.  I'll have a mid-week post.

That's all for now.
Thanks for reading.

Comments welcome below.