Post by Whup Em All on Dec 8, 2023 15:34:35 GMT -6
3.) Half-time against Michigan State. Not strictly football. But my first performance with the Southerners. First time in a college stadium. Having the stadium stand up and applaud for us after having blown off their own band was something I won't be forgetting anytime soon.
Not to get too far into the bando weeds, but if we're going to include halftime moments, I'd have to throw in three:
Mississippi State (2002): It was Southerners' first time playing to an SEC crowd. We took the field to a chorus of boos and cowbells. Our allotted time only allowed us to play one song. We chose Malaguena. After the opening statement, most of the cowbells died away. A minute or two later, as the drumline began their rack feature, the boos gave way to applause. By the time we got to the last loud few measures, the entire home side was on its feet cheering. It was pure adrenaline, and it was awesome. Right up until the first beer bottle flew from the student section and plunked Justine on the head. The classless rat bastards.
troy state (1995): Five years removed from our last meeting, the Battle for the Ol' School Bell resumed in the unfriendly confines of Memorial Stadium, before a capacity crowd of 12K+. At halftime, the Southerners took the field first. During our introduction, we got only a smattering of applause from the trojan home side, mixed in with some audible boos and jeers. (It was just like the old days!) We played our full show, minus the ballad (which was a shame, because Bob Patton nailed the crap out of that solo all season). Our closer? Malaguena. Our big drill move at the end? The Wedge. The original one. The one all other wedges are measured against. When we finished our show, the stands erupted in a thunderous standing ovation. Man, was it sweet. I'd say we earned some fans that day, but it was troy state. They all still hated us, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
MTSU (1998): These guys are our conference mates now, and all things considered, we have a pretty decent relationship with them. But for some reason, in the 90s, we hated each other. The Internet was exploding around this time, and "social media" was all the rage. Social media, of course, meaning newsgroups and discussion boards. (We didn't have farcebook and the twitters in those days. GET OFF MY LAWN!) The older Southerners who were around in '94 (all dozen or so of us) remembered a near-fight breaking out between the drumline and MTSU student section the last time we'd gone to Murfreesboro. So we had no love for anything related to that school. But then a couple of MTSU band folks started bragging online how they were going to blow us off the field. I mean, our '94 band was pretty ragged. We were 180 members soaking wet, and Bodiford hadn't had time to work his sorcery yet. The band MTSU remembered seeing was ripe for being blown off the field. What they didn't expect was a 275-member Leviathan with an attitude. The Band of Blue took the field first with "The Hits of Michael Jackson". As they were wrapping up their show with Thriller, the Southerners were entering the stadium. We saw them push forward off the front sideline, step up onto the team benches, and play the last blaring chords of their show directly into our home crowd's faces before thumping their chests and high-fiving each other. And we saw our home crowd totally ignoring them, reading newspapers, game programs, candy wrappers... whatever was available. Then, polite applause on par with golf clapping. It was glorious. I've never been so proud of JSU football fans. Then we took the field. The show opened with Mark Fifer's arrangement of Firebird. A 16th note flourish from the pit, followed by a descending 16th note run into a pedal by the 20-Js, followed by a low brass, mellophones, and trumpets building into a thunderous opening statement by a fully armed and operational hornline, as we rotated a couple of boxes (Mike Leoffelholz drill... that was his thing) and pushed toward the front sideline, where the Band of Blue stood, watching. And I kid you not, folks... they looked as though we'd just run over their very favorite puppy in the whole wide world. It was the most beautiful site these old eyes had ever seen. I will never forget that moment for as long as I live, even if we don't have to hate MTSU anymore.