In halftime at the Ohio State/Florida State football game last night, the Ohio band was performing when assistants stretched out several blue plastic tarps along the sideline and the band marched up and sort of huddled under the tarps before marching out again. The tv coverage moved on to something else just as this was happening, so I couldn’t tell what they were doing.
But it looked odd. This was a big-time performance by a renowned college band, and they were using some cheap looking tarps like you see on rooftops after a hurricane, spread out and held up awkwardly. So what were they doing under there?
(The tarps weren’t part of a colorful display or anything. They were held up at a 45 degree angle to shield the band members from the audience on that side of the field, or so it seemed.)
I only caught about 5 notes while I was passing through the room, but I thought they were playing “my heart will go on” from Titanic… and the tarp was blue to go w/ the sinking theme.
When I was in the marching band at CSU fresno we used to do rain dances hoping for rain because they would send us home. Many marching band uniforms are 100% wool and or dry clean only, water is not all that good for them IIRC.
I saw alot of this type of thing in light rain over my many years of HS, college, and drum and bugle corps. Many unforms also include things like feathers that look like utter crap if they get wet.
The song was from the Titanic. The band was marching in the shape of the sinking Titanic ship. They had smoke effects from the Tuba section and every thing. The tarps represented the ocean.
Both the Band and the team were sinking last night.
They played the Titanic song. Their layout formed a ship, complete with smokestacks with steam coming out. The band members closest to the sideline formed the ocean, thus the blue tarp.
I made the comment that this was the first time I had ever seen fire extinguishers used as band instruments. But the purpose of the tarp escaped me, too, until I saw the posts here about Titanic. I guess I didn’t recognize the music.
I wonder who decided that a tune from a movie about an unsinkable ship that went down like a brick would be a good choice for a halftime show? Hell, they should have just went with Molly Hatchet’s “Gator Country” and got it over with.
I was wondering too what the hell they were doing with that tarp. Now that it’s been explained here it makes sense.
You think the network would have tried to get a better angle of the shot so you could see what they were doing. Apparently not.
The coverage of the bands was pretty lame. They are marching in formation, we don’t want close ups of individual players we want to see the formations.
Uniforms are important, yes. But also the mucisal instruments shouldn’t get wet. For instance, rain will have a potential to dissolve the glue in the pads with the clarinets.
correction: Ohio State University played the University of Florida, not the Florida State University (which happens to be the Univeristy of Florida’s in-state rival).
The game was played in a retractable dome. Although the roof was open before kickoff, I believe it was closed prior to and for the duration of the game. Besides, the only water falling in Glendale came from the moist eyes of Buckeye fans.
