Videogames become the stellar focus to a memorable marching band halftime show over the weekend.
It may surprise you all to know this – okay, maybe not – but my high school extracurricular days were spent in a marching band, a wild, mostly watching from the sidelines, ride where I experienced the competitive world of musically choreographed football-field sized spectacles.
What a hell of thing it was, too. Our small town band program even won a spot at the Texas High School Marching Band Finals in Waco, Texas… where – geeze this lame admitting – I stupidly fell down mid-way during our production of the main theme to 2001’s A Space Odyssey.
My “unnoticeable to everyone else except me” failure aside, the gist of our performance had us forming planets like Saturn and what not to tie in with our galactic theme. A solid idea, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t hold a candle to what Ohio State University pulled off Saturday night.
At halftime, during the school’s 63-38 football pummeling of Nebraska, the O.S.U. marching band put on an amazing show honoring videogames; namely, nine full minutes of fantastically synchronized, brassy-themed musical callbacks to several defining gaming series. Oh, you bet it looked great!
Everything from classics such as Super Mario Bros., modern hits ala Halo: Combat Evolved, and a recognizable slew of others were splendidly represented in Ohio State’s performance, including one show-stopping display for the band’s respects to The Legend of Zelda. It was, as they say on the Internets, ermahgerd cool. Take a look.
Being a mild college football observer myself, I thought it was quite amusing that even though they weren’t playing against their in-conference Big Ten rival, Michigan, the Ohio State marching band still worked in a playful dig at them – did you notice the flag used during the Mario bit? Well played, indeed.
Seriously, well played everything; one of the best marching band performances, ever! Mind you, I haven’t seen many of them, so clearly, that probably doesn’t mean much coming from lil’ ole me, but you can always trust me to bring you some excellent geeky news on Walyou, where we’ve got for you the best ideas for Halloween family costumes and moon-shaped ice cream treats.
