Holy cow...a band nerd who can't spell!!!! It's Karma with a "K"...and what the heck are you doing talking about the band on this site?
Holy cow, a sports fan who doesn't know how to properly use an ellipsis!
But seriously, tiger, there are a lot more current and former marching band members on this site than you apparently think. Most of us are regulars here, to boot. I'm not going to be presumptuous and start putting words in peoples' mouths, but if you had spent more than 8 seconds on this site before shooting off your reply, you would notice that the band is discussed in many contexts here. Believe it or not, we are not just icing on the cake- we DO make a difference in the stadium. Ask people. We help get the crowd fired up and get loud, we help keep spirits up when things aren't going our way, we provide some great traditions that the crowd joins in on (just ask the student section what they think of first downs!), we can play so loudly and distractingly that the opposing team cannot effectively communicate in their huddle. Hell, as evidenced early this season, we can even commit penalties! For better or for worse, we ARE an integral part of the gameday experience.
Now on to a more serious question:
cycloneworld said:
Did you guys get a new director (or whatever you call them)? It seems that the halftime shows were totally different than years past...in a great, great way. I have never been a big band fan but this year's halftime shows were great!
Nope, Matthew Smith is still our director. He's in his fifth year here. But I- and most of the band- have noticed the same thing, and I agree with you. While I enjoyed a lot of our shows last year, I didn't expect that many of them would be very memorable for the audience. They would be enjoyed at the moment, but forgotten the next day. This year... yeah, they're different. The only show where I didn't recognize either the music or its source was our show for the Kansas game- themes from "Silverado" and "The Cowboys". We didn't recognize them, but apparently lots of older folks did, and enjoyed hearing them.
I couldn't tell you why the shows this year are so much better than even in the past. Some of them are longer, and I get the feeling that JP is a lot more flexible as to halftime scheduling than BVD was. The music for the entire season's shows is basically decided almost before the season even begins, which last year was before Pollard was hired. That could be a reason that we're just now seeing more creative stuff, even though JP's been here over a year. This is, of course, total speculation, but I think it's not too far off.