OK - so despite the title, Nate has been to football games before but this was his first NHHS Football game performing in the Marching Band. As a Freshman drummer, Nate is in "The Pit" (that's him on the right) which is where the various forms of bells and other non-marching percussion hang out. Nate is playing bells which is funny because, although he can read music to sing, he has never had to read music for an instrument. And even better, he had to memorize it! For parades (like the NYC Columbus Day Parade), he will get to carry the banner.The best thing that can be said about the football game was that the Band looked really good.
They did 2/3 of their field show and looked pretty tight for only 3 weeks of practice. The are doing a show based on West Side Story and the music sounded crisp (especially the solo by the Pit) and the formations actually told the story. It will be interesting to see the complete show later in the season. The field show is more Drum and Bugle Corps than what I remember from marching band, but I think that's just the way it is now. We were all symmetrical with a heavy dose of John Philip Sousa. The idea of a "Pit" or triple and quad drums never entered the mind of our director, Larry McGriff.The football game ended a 35 - 7 defeat to arch-rival Central. It's a cheap night out ($3), so I guess I can put up with bad football to watch Nate and the Band. I have some experience with bad football - In my years at Marple-Newtown High School, the football team had some bad years, including one year where we were 0-10-1, the lone bright spot a 0-0 tie. We also seemed to lose to cross-town rival Cardinal O'Hara (a Catholic League powerhouse) by scores like 50-0. At Villanova, we had no football team the four years I was there since they had been so bad in the years previous. Villanova returned to football in 1-AA after I left and produced the Eagles star running back Brian Westbrook.
After the game, Nate and I watched the finals of Drum Corps International which I had Tivo'd. It's been a long time since I'd seen DCI - we used to watch it every year when I was a kid when we were on vacation in Brigantine. I can definitely say that watching it on a modern 31 inch TV is better than the 19 inch "portable" we had at the shore. It was fun re-living a childhood memory with Nate - he thought the marching and the drum lines (of course) were awesome and his favorite corp was Phantom Regiment. He says they have the coolest name and the sound just hits you. Alas, the Santa Clara Vanguard won - which was cool since it was the first finals in California. Nate and I are planning to go see one of the DCI preliminaries next summer if it comes to NJ or PA.
