It’s marching band season!

I have to begin with my alma mater, The Ohio State University (O-H!). While I was never in the marching band (or TBDBITL, as we Buckeyes like to call it), I have always loved watching them perform. OSUMB is all brass and percussion, meaning no clarinets, flutes, or saxes are involved. It’s been that way since 1934. When I was in my early years of college (early 1990s), there were still a handful of old woodwind players who participated in the alumni band weekends – it was neat to think that they’d been in the band prior to ’34.

In the past few years, OSUMB has really ramped up their performances. They’ve always been fun to watch, but recently they’ve done some amazing work. I’m going to the game this weekend and am looking forward to see what they have planned!

I binge-watched a bunch of their shows from this year, and I think you’ll enjoy this one. It’s a tribute to The Wizard of Oz. Those who keep up with college football rivalries will guess which school the Wicked Witch attends, and those with good ears might recognize a little something that gets added to the music at that point. It certainly gave me a chuckle!

Thanks to reader Jim, who alerted me to another fantastic college group out there – the Jacksonville State University Marching Southerners. I thoroughly enjoyed this year’s program, which includes one of my favorite pieces, “Salvation Is Created.” Regular readers of the blog will remember I posted about that piece a while back. This band is huge! Check out the number of xylophones!

The epic video game show

I leave you with another OSU show, just in case there are people out there who didn’t see their spectacular video game tribute. It made the national news, so there’s a good chance you at least heard about it. You really do need to see this one!

See you next time!