Let me start out by saying, this has been a dream come true. I have been watching the Bayou Classic on TV since 1994. It was a major reason why I went to an HBCU. To actually go to the game and watch in person meant so much. I have had a fantastic time hear in New Orleans.
Now without further ado. The Prunalysis.
During the first quarter I sat one section over and behind SU’s band.
“SU No. 2”
This powerful SU standard was the first thing that I heard from the band. From the back, I couldn’t completely tell how powerful or well-played that it was.
SU - play around drum beat
Although this was obviously just for fun, I still noticed a lot of real dirty playing from SU’s snares.
GSU - Fight Song
As I listened to the song across the field, there was a lot of sticking out. This was not the uniform sound that I heard from GSU the day before. I assumed that like many bands GSU didn’t take their fight song very seriously.
GSU - grooving song
Don’t know the name of this song. Maybe someone can help me identify it based on when it was played (early in the first quarter) and the fact that it had a tuba break in the middle.
Great trombones.
I loved how the sousaphones got stronger during their break.
Out of tune mellophones.
The Prunester….More to come.
Now without further ado. The Prunalysis.
During the first quarter I sat one section over and behind SU’s band.
“SU No. 2”
This powerful SU standard was the first thing that I heard from the band. From the back, I couldn’t completely tell how powerful or well-played that it was.
SU - play around drum beat
Although this was obviously just for fun, I still noticed a lot of real dirty playing from SU’s snares.
GSU - Fight Song
As I listened to the song across the field, there was a lot of sticking out. This was not the uniform sound that I heard from GSU the day before. I assumed that like many bands GSU didn’t take their fight song very seriously.
GSU - grooving song
Don’t know the name of this song. Maybe someone can help me identify it based on when it was played (early in the first quarter) and the fact that it had a tuba break in the middle.
Great trombones.
I loved how the sousaphones got stronger during their break.
Out of tune mellophones.
The Prunester….More to come.
Replies
SU - snare drum feature
SU’s snare played a really simple and really dirty snare feature.
GSU - percussion section warm-up
GSU’s percussion section responded with what was obviously a section warm-up. The cadence included patterns of flam-taps, paradiddles, doubles, and other rudiments.
They performed the warm-up a two times. The second time was performed much faster. The line actually sounded cleaner faster. The warm-up featured plenty to do for the snares, but was very simple and repetitive for the basses and tenors (I couldn’t hear the multi-toms).
Early on GSU showed that they were the superior drumline, still I was surprised by the playing of this simple cadence. It was the equivalent of playing the Bb scale at a band that you think you’ve better than.
SU - snare drum warm-up
It seemed pretty obvious that this was a warm-up based on the fact that 1/s of the bass drum section was playing the exercise on the rim of their drums while the snares played it.
Pretty dirty.
The Prunester…Telling it like it is.
Next SU cranked up this high power song. Strong trombones. I must say, that SU's tenor drums are the loudest that I have ever heard.
GSU - Drum Cadence
I couldn't really tell what was going on musically do to the distance but visually the snare sticking looked very uniform.
GSU - "Lotus Flower Bomb"
Strong tubas. Great low brass.
GSU generated a solid uniform sound from every section in the band.
SU - "Turn The Beat Up"
This was a fantastic selection played by SU that would have been a game-changer if played yesterday. Great sound. Most impressive were SU's mellophones who sounded incredible on the melody throughout.
I now moved to sit directly in front of SU’s band.
SU - “Talking Out The Side of Your Neck”
Great sound from the band. I learned something new about this arrangement. I learned that the piccolos play with the mellophones during their feature, while the clarinets play with the trumpets.
After saying in my earlier Prunalysis that SU’s mellophone had never nailed their part anytime that I have heard them play….they nailed it. It was perfect. Thank you SU mellophones.
The Prunester…More to come…Next up the halftime shows.
SU - Half-Time Performance
Drill - "Off The Wall"
SU's sound was clean, intense and well-balance.
As usual, you could cut your steak on their formations.
SU - Dance Girl Song
Repeat everything that was said about the drill song.
SU's sound was very mature and powerful.
SU's based ued "Before I Let Go" to transition to the next formation.
Once again, echo the previous comments.
Dance Routine
I was somewhat disappointed to see that SU turned away from the home side to perform their dance routine (I was particularly disappointed seeing as how I literally ran from one side of the stadium to the other as SU started its performance when I realized that I was on the wrong side).
I believe that the dance routine was to Teddy’s Jam. The band did some thing I had never seen SU do before which was to bring the drumline up to the front to play the beat. The tubas then joined them standing right in front of the drums.
The dance routine was ok, but lacked a lot of SU’s signature flavor.
The Prunester...Telling it Like it is!
Next up..GSU's show
GSU entered the field with 4 drum majors coming to the center of the field. Everything the drum majors did was very uniform.
Drill - “September”
The band spend most of the drill facing to the sidelines. When Southern did the same, you could still here the much bigger band. When Grambling did it, the sound of the band except for the trumpets almost completely disappeared.
Tempo-wise the tempo of the song seemed to keep getting faster and faster. The whole drill seemed somewhat hurried.
The step-2 formations were not very clean and left the band looking cluttered on the field while executing them.
GSU - dance girl feature - “Out of My Head”
The band danced throughout the song, and sounding durn-good while doing it. Very full sound. Great job to the low brass in particular.
Some of the dance moves that GSU performed were bigger than what I am used to seeing them perform. All entertaining, it really took away from the dance girls, and made them more of an after thought.
Ok, that’s all for now. Tomorrow I will finish Grambling’s show, and the rest of the game.
The Prunester...Telling it Like It Is.
GSU - Halftime Show - Slow Song"
Didn't have time to write it down. (Maybe someone can help me with the title. But once again GSU was creating an amazing amount of sound. Great tone quality.
Trumpets...Wow.
My only issue with the dancing during both the dance girl feature and the slow song was the uniformity. The band members were all doing the same dance moves, but perhaps a little more attention could be paid to making everyone move exactly alike (BCU comes to mind). The slight differences in movement took away from the effect of the dance.
Dance Routine - Very hype. During part of the dance routine, the cymbal players had their own routine going. There was one part though that it didn't look like all of them were able to complete.
The band came off the field to Party Rock Anthem, and again thrilled the crowd.
Grambling dance routine was overall much better and more exciting than SU's. This led many in the audience to believe that Grambling had stolen the show.
The Prunester…Telling it like it is.
Although Grambling had the better dance routine the overall halftime would have to go Southern who provided a near flawless performance.
The Prunester…Telling it like it is.
Next up. The third and fourth quarters.
From their already seated position, SU started playing powerful song after song after song at Grambling.
They started with "That Songs That They've Been Playing for Years, that I Don't Know the Name of, But I Really Love" - Please somebody help me here.
SU sounded great here.
SU - "Cupid"
SU then moved to Cupid. The trumpets started getting swallowed up again. The tutti section's section where strong. There was a lot of sliding on the trumpet notes instead of nailing the notes.
SU - "I Need A Doctor"
SU followed up with this powerful song that they played on yesterday. SU's trumpets must have heard me comment that they were getting swallowed up on the last song, because they certainly would not be denied on this one. SU's trumpets came back with a vengeance. They laid down note after powerful high note.
SU - "Stuntin' Like My Daddy"
The pummeling continued. I was too far away from the band to tell how clean it was, but gracious it sounded good from a far.
The Prunester…More to come.
This is the one I keep messing up the name on "We Know How to Party"
By now, I had positioned myself back in front of Southern's band. From across the field, Grambling produced a powerful full tone.
The trumpets did a great job of holding their sustains.
Baritones & Mellophones sounded good together.
SU - "We Know How to Party
SU responded with the same song. I noticed that SU's tuba play very cleanly.
The trumpets and mellophones have some amazing parts in this song.
Directly in front of the band I noticed that the trumpets really had some great things going on during the baritone/mellophone power section. At the battle of the bands the day before I couldn't hear this at all because it was getting totally drowned out.
The only way that the SU’s trumpets are ever going to match the rest of the band is to practice playing in the higher octaves together. With every man, kind of going for broke, they stand little chance against the larger belled instrument. With them focusing on creating one sectional sound, there is no way that the rest of the band would be able to stand a chance.
I must give kudos to to SU for good cut-offs. The director had to often cut the band off quickly or quiet them down. The band never missed on that.
SU - Snare Drum Punch
Dirty
Grambling - Percussion Cadence
This sounded cluttered from across the field, so I couldn’t tell what was going on.
SU - “Let Your Mind Be Free
SU’s tuba were clean most of the time, but splatted some on the higher notes.
I noticed a counter-melody in the baritones I can’t say that I’ve ever heard before.
Some of the trumpets stuck-out when the band had to quickly play soft.
Tubas were very solid on their high notes at the end of the song.
SU - Tenor Drum Solo
This were very not very clean.
The Prunester…More to come.
chris brown- wet the bed ws the slow song
Prunejuice said:
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