From: lsjumb@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stanford Band)
Subject: Re: The Television Ate Our Show...
Keywords: (distribution usa)
Organization: Stanford Band
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 07:08:06 GMT

In article <Supah-MOB> jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu (grungy (John F. Gladu)) writes:

>Television? NO THANK YOU!
>Any other tales of woe out there?  Any GOOD experiences?

Actually, our most recent episode with the NFL went over very well.
I'm not sure if it was televised, but it went something like this:

It was the Saturday after the earthquake in 1989 (is that right?  I'm
really quite drunk at the moment - we just had a women's basketball
game and all), but anyway, the stadium the 49ers usually play in was
garbage, so they played the Patriots in Stanford Stadium, and lo and
behold, they let the LSJUMB play.  As it turned out, we had a game
against Utah the day before (Sat) in the pouring rain, so it was a double-
duty weekend.  I'd like to point out that the pregame for the UTah game
was our tribute to Graham Chapman, who had just passed on, and involved
the best giant Trojan Rabbit EVER.  Period.  But as I say, I'm really
rather fucked up and better get on with it.

So anyway, we SMUTed (came up with) the show the Thursday before the game,
and rehearsed it for the FIRST time on Sunday morning, the day of the game.
The 1/2 time show was the NBC half time half time show.  We showed the
live audience what they were missing on TV.  It went something like this:

Announcers:  "First of all, we'd like to say hi to Bill Walsh, who is up
there announcing the game.  You're a pretty lousy announcer, but were a
great coach, and will probably come back in a few years anyway."  Band
spells "Hi Bill" on the field and plays a tune.

Announcers:  "Part of the 1/2 time festivities is showing you the scores
of other games around the nation.  Here's the score of the Giants/Chargers
game."  For this formation we formed:
			SD 14
			NY 7
Or something like that.  We made sure it was the ACTUAL score at the time
by having a small TV in the stands.  This has ever since been known as the
"Audible Formation" since we made it up literally seconds before going
onto the field.  That morning we had practiced a couple of different scores.
If the score had been something requiring more people, like 42 to 28, we
would have been in trouble.

Announcers:  "And now some highlights from the first half of today's game:"
The Band starts playing a tune (in the form of a giant camera) while the
altoz and clar-pix play football.  The music stops and we see the same play
in slow motion.  The crowd went absolutely NUTS on this formation.  Of course,
these are the same people that, when you say "Hello, can you give me the
time?" respond with "GO NINERS!  GO NINERS!"  You try to wipe the spittle
from their chins, but they don't stop.  "GO NINERS!  GO JOE!"  Sad.

We then formed the NBC peacock (granted it looked MUCH more like a turkey,
but hey, so what) to return the crowd to their regularly scheduled show.

We then returned to the stands, after which the local NFL rep came by with
a check for our services (ah, money.  Yum yum) and asked how we had come
up with such a great show in 2 days.  I believe manager Jon Sherman said:
"We're Stanford students."  Not bad.

Scott "we ran out of Jim Beam BEFORE the first half ended, dammit" Stan4d
-- 
Leland Stanford Junior     |\   | |~~~~ |    | ~~T~~ "LSJUMBle" Show
University Marching Band   | \  | |     |    |   |    Fall, 1986
                           |  \ | |     |    |   |
lsjumb@leland.stanford.edu |   \| |____  \__/    |    Hey bonz - nice E.