BYU

Except for the 1am arrival time back home, I really really like to watch the band at BYU.  They always seem to play well at BYU.  It is a time in the season when they have worked a lot of the bugs out, have polished the show enough to be proud of it, and they have a really great crowd to perform for.  This audience applauds a lot (important) and loudly (even more important.) The shear size of this crowd lends an additional electricity to the performance and the audience’s excitement about band excellence helps the students perform well for them.

Byu is a neat venue itself.  There is an added anticipation because the 5A bands perform later at night than any of the other places that we have regular season competitions.  The dark of the night in the warm up areas seem to make the music travel easier through the air.  The imposing stadium glows with light.   And then there is the tunnel.  Former band members talk about waiting in the tunnel to come out.  They say that the field just seems so large and bright and the field seems bigger for some reason.  It is very exciting!

Then BYU adds the Jumbo Tron. It is great way for the crowd to get a close up view of what is going on with individual band members.  During a break while we were watching smaller bands perform the members of the band began a “wave” and they scored a camera pan across our group for the big screen.  It was fun for me to capture a few pics of our soloists as they were displayed larger than life there. So exciting!!  And probably a little nerve racking for a few of our more camera shy students.

BYU is my favorite place to watch the band perform for all of these reasons.  Great job band!!