attended a HS football playoff game Saturday, one of the best football games I remember. Our team, Newman Smith, lost 28-25 to Longview, great game, but Halftime, wow!
Longview band comes out in old military-looking garb with white shoes, marches 6 to 5 from end zone to middle of field. They do an honest to goodness military style marching band show complete with whistle commands. Drum majors were girls, dressed in complete traditional "drum majorette" attire, very short skirts, etc.
The band split into two blocks to march their show, each block had a drum majorette giving their whistle commands. One thing that was refreshing was the band was playing almost the entire time they were marching.
Then for their exit, they formed a block L, the announcer comes on, tells crowd about the L, the Longview side applauds big time as they exit.
At first I was in a state of shock. The last time I saw one of these kinds of shows was in 1980, my soph year in HS, and that was Bryan HS. It was kind of obvious why they marched that kind of stuff, being so close to A & M.
Anyway, I've talked to a couple of people who really liked the show, because of the prevalance nowadays of the schools who get out there and bore people with their symphony on the field stuff.
Anyway, a few questions.
1. This style is so old, when was it really in? 50s? 60s? 70s? Our HS dropped the white shoes after '80, but we never did any military style stuff.
2. Curious about other people. When was the last time you saw a military style show, other than A & M?
3. I'm kind of glad I saw it, it was like looking at a window in time. I'm still kind of shocked by it, do they march that kind of thing all of the time in east Texas, or is this the exception?
For what it was it was pretty good, especially if you like to hear a marching band play an actual march. If you're in the area and you like history, go see them this weekend. I guarantee you will see something completely different than you are used to seeing at halftime.
Longview band comes out in old military-looking garb with white shoes, marches 6 to 5 from end zone to middle of field. They do an honest to goodness military style marching band show complete with whistle commands. Drum majors were girls, dressed in complete traditional "drum majorette" attire, very short skirts, etc.
The band split into two blocks to march their show, each block had a drum majorette giving their whistle commands. One thing that was refreshing was the band was playing almost the entire time they were marching.
Then for their exit, they formed a block L, the announcer comes on, tells crowd about the L, the Longview side applauds big time as they exit.
At first I was in a state of shock. The last time I saw one of these kinds of shows was in 1980, my soph year in HS, and that was Bryan HS. It was kind of obvious why they marched that kind of stuff, being so close to A & M.
Anyway, I've talked to a couple of people who really liked the show, because of the prevalance nowadays of the schools who get out there and bore people with their symphony on the field stuff.
Anyway, a few questions.
1. This style is so old, when was it really in? 50s? 60s? 70s? Our HS dropped the white shoes after '80, but we never did any military style stuff.
2. Curious about other people. When was the last time you saw a military style show, other than A & M?
3. I'm kind of glad I saw it, it was like looking at a window in time. I'm still kind of shocked by it, do they march that kind of thing all of the time in east Texas, or is this the exception?
For what it was it was pretty good, especially if you like to hear a marching band play an actual march. If you're in the area and you like history, go see them this weekend. I guarantee you will see something completely different than you are used to seeing at halftime.
