Band ... Music ... musings

[Turbine]

_ Oh yeah, kill the piped in music, that's the most I've seen little kids enjoy themselves in a long time.

The Ice Gators had more piped in music than the Alaskan pipeline could handle, we now know that is not the answer to sustainability.

[UL Alum93]

Turbine,

I disagree, they brought a product to Lafayette that no one knew about and made a family type fun atmospere game in and game out. We could totally care about the actual game of hockey, the music, the excitement on the ice (yes the fighting) is what kept it around. The problem came when the "game of hockey" started getting played and the fan based became BORED!! When things become boring, you find something else to spend your money on. All I'm saying is keep your fans having fun, if it means music (up beat music) so be it, just like the NBA, NHL, NFL, etc. I would love to have a college football tradition like BCS schools of bands playing and pumping up the crowd, do we have that in the Swamp, not at this time!

[HoustonCajun]

_ Oh yeah, kill the piped in music, that's the most I've seen little kids enjoy themselves in a long time. Sorry but the band music doesn't make the atmosphere for young Cajun's (kids) jump up and down and have a good time. The atmosphere has been great, kind of like the Ice Gator games, remember how many supported them, good product on the ice, but more importantly great time watching the game. We have a good product developing on the field, keep up the atmospere, sorry but if the band can't get it, which they haven't the pa music is the next best thing...not knocking the band, like someone sayed it's the directors. _

NEVER at a college game should there be piped in music over the band. If the band doesn't do it right, fix it and do it quickly. But, to play the piped in music that they did at the last game, most of which was rap music, is deplorable. This is college football, not a semi-pro game. UL MUST develop a BCS type game day atmosphere at its games and a lot of that starts with the band. It is time for our band director to get his ______ together. More and more fans will be coming to our games and we have to give them a great experience. And, let's not talk about the uniqueness of Cajun football. Kids running wild on the endzones, piped in rap music, truck commercial give-aways while the team is coming on the field to start the second half, an announcer who can't coordinate the team introduction at the start of the game, and a band that has no idea of what to play or when to play it - none of which help to get the crowd into the game, are not the kind of unique things I want UL to represent. I already addressed all of these concerns with Scott Farmer and he agreed. He has his staff addressing all of them and more. This can be a turning point for UL football, not just in winning but in winning our fans over. It must be done right.

[awadelewis]

_ Oh yeah, kill the piped in music, that's the most I've seen little kids enjoy themselves in a long time. Sorry but the band music doesn't make the atmosphere for young Cajun's (kids) jump up and down and have a good time. _

Someone mentioned the root of the problem in an earlier post: game management. There was zero coordination between the band and the press box throughout the entire game last Saturday. While I'm not a big fan of the piped-in rap music, at least don't have the band and the piped music competing with each other at the same time during the game. They avoid these problems by having the Band Director on a headset with the Game Mgt staff during the basketball games. Is there any reason why they can't do this during the football games?

[RaginRash]

Thank you for adjusting the thread title, comrade Turbine!

..glad this is the stuff ppl are complaining about...winning is nice!

[Turbine]

I'm in over my head as far as success and failure on this one.

I went to 1 game when the crowds were around 9,000 thought it was to loud.

Just yesterday a caller to Birds Eye View stated pretty much the same thing. Difference being he had a suite and gave tickets to clients. He said the loud music chased him away.

[Cajnchrldr]

_ Alright.


To those who said that we didn't play enough: we've played A LOT more in the stands than we have played in the past few years. The NCAA rules don't allow bands to play a whole lot. This year however, our AD told us to play when we need to play, basically, and when or if a ref warns us we'll tone it down. (We got a warning from the refs at the ULM game for playing too much) Also, we're human, we're not machines. If you run all day, you're going to be tired right? Well, we have practice from 10:30 until 12:30 in The Swamp, the day of the games. We also have the Cajun Walk and we have the Ragin' March. We have three pep rallies, at the Alumni tent, at the ticket booth, and on the hillside. Then we have pre-game, then we have our halftime show. We're much more interested in saving our chops so that we sound good during the times we're actually the main attraction i.e. pre-game and halftime. (If you want to hear how well we really play, come to the Showcase of Marching Bands Saturday, we play at 6. We won't play the entire day, so we'll be ready to go for our performances.) Also, WE'RE FANS TOO!!!!! We want to watch our Cajuns play we don't want to but stuck looking at our director all night.

There is absolutely no coordination between the PoA, the Jazz and the cheerleaders. I remember when I first started, the Jazz had a different person in charge, and we would always be working with each other. They'd be at our practices during the week to work out things with the dance tune, and when we'd go somewhere we'd all ride together and hang out and have a good time. Now, with this new person in charge, it seems like they want no part of the band. The only time we ever see them is for maybe 20 minutes on Saturday during our rehearsal. They always have to have they always have to have their own section on the buses, and seem to be worried about only themselves. To a lesser extent this holds true with the cheerleaders, although they travel with the football team, its kinda like they're in a different division I guess. I dunno.

As far as us not playing when the team comes out: we've always played as the team was running onto the field, this time, however, the team took too long. We weren't too early, they were too late.

As far as us not playing the fight song when the team comes out in the second half: what do you want us to do?? We're trying to get back into our seats. How about the crowd take some initiative and SING the fight song when they come out since we can't play it.

As far as us playing when we had the ball, yeah I was f-ing ____ed about that too, blame our band director.

As far as us not playing the fight song tag (the "Hustle up and bustle up and fight on to victory, Geaux U-L!!" part") after we get a first down, as soon as we see the signal that we got it, our director is yelling at us to play. The drummers are always playing grab-_____ and never come in when they're supposed to. It ____es us off too, blame the percussion. A lot of times, we can't play because they take too long to get ready.

We want to play more and new things. We've gotten a lot of new music. However, its up to our band director to make time in rehearsal to learn them, and up to him to call them up for us to play during the games.

Don't blame the band for anything. All we do is follow orders. Would you blame a private for something his sergeant ordered him to do? No, so don't blame the band for all this stuff. Most of the time its not our fault.

I've taken all the criticism, but the one thing that has been requested most by this forum of the band actually happened last night, and nobody said a thing about it (to my knowledge.) As soon as the game was over, we played the fight song, followed directly by our ALMA MATER!!! We played it before most people even left, the team was still in the middle of the field. Our director even talked with the AD and got them to put to lyrics to the Alma Mater on the screen.

Just give us a break guys. I mean, we all have classes, we all have jobs, we all have lives. I work about 36 hours on top of school, my girlfriend, band and the fraternity I'm pledging, and I still have to find the time when I do get free time to do homework, study for exams, wash clothes, clean my house etc.; this is a common story among students. We get worn out. Like I said, we're only human, and we do our best to try to entertain our fans during the games. _

im glad you think we.. the cheerleaders.. only think of ourselves! we do not... you sit here preaching how all you do is follow orders from your director...even as captain of the cheerleading squad..i cannot control what we do.. i can to a certain extent but thats it.. we too have an advisor that leads us.. the ragin jazz has that same advisor.. so .. we dont have time to hang around and practice with the band. we do our own thing bc we have a hard time getting cooperation from the band director.......and personally..having been on the squad for the past 3 years... have found it hard to spend time around the band..even standing infront of the ragin brass at basketball is tough when we can hear everything that is said about us.. and im talking negatively..and even traveling with them to the ncaa tournament a few years back..again hard to deal with. so yes we distance ourselves from the band.

[Turbine]

Hang in there, you do a great job.

[HOUCajun]

_ im glad you think we.. the cheerleaders.. only think of ourselves! we do not... you sit here preaching how all you do is follow orders from your director...even as captain of the cheerleading squad..i cannot control what we do.. i can to a certain extent but thats it.. we too have an advisor that leads us.. the ragin jazz has that same advisor.. so .. we dont have time to hang around and practice with the band. we do our own thing bc we have a hard time getting cooperation from the band director.......and personally..having been on the squad for the past 3 years... have found it hard to spend time around the band..even standing infront of the ragin brass at basketball is tough when we can hear everything that is said about us.. and im talking negatively..and even traveling with them to the ncaa tournament a few years back..again hard to deal with. so yes we distance ourselves from the band. _

The band and cheerleaders not getting along?!?!? This must be the 1st time in recorded history this has ever happened. LOL
Geaux UL!

[HoustonCajun]

_ The band and cheerleaders not getting along?!?!? This must be the 1st time in recorded history this has ever happened. LOL
Geaux UL! _

I saw no improvement at Homecoming regarding the band playing during the game. Still all the piped in crappy music that has nothing to do with the football game while the band just sits there. The band plays songs randomly and occassionally the fight song, but that appears to be it. It is clearly too late to do anything about it this year. But, with a year to prepare, something needs to be done. We need a song played for just the defense, when they make great plays or stops a team on 3rd down or creates a turnover. We need a different song for the offense similarly when they get a first down or make a great play. And when we score, we need the fight song played. At every first down, we need the fight song played. We need songs that get the crowd into the game and within the song spell out C-A-J-U-N-S. That is just about all we need to hear, except for a few other songs during timeouts, like Respect or the Family Guy or the ESPN theme. And, we need to get the cheerleaders to get the stadium rocking with "Ragin" on one side and "Cajuns" on the other. Get the crowd doing this a few times during the game over and over and getting louder and louder. Develop a REAL BCS type atmosphere at our games and the crowds will get bigger and bigger as we continue to win and will leave each time with a great feeling about UL football for the entire experience, not just the win.

[ULBaby!]

anybody ever stop to think that the band director might not know enough about football to know when to cue the right number? Maybe he could use a football ambassador or something to get him on the right track - tell him what goes where...after all, I am pretty sure none of our football coaches would be able to arrange a piece of music with any acumen.

[Turbine]

_ anybody ever stop to think that the band director might not know enough about football to know when to cue the right number? Maybe he could use a football ambassador or something to get him on the right track - tell him what goes where...after all, I am pretty sure none of our football coaches would be able to arrange a piece of music with any acumen. _

Great point.