When the halftime show is better than the game

Tokyo, Japan -- University marching bands can be seen taking the field at halftime shows throughout the United States during football season. The hundreds-strong groups consist of brass, a huge drum section and woodwinds, and keep the football-hungry fans entertained before the second half. Unless you are in the South, that is. There, the football game is just the lead-up; the bands are the show.

"There are two battles going on: There's the football game and the bands," says Brian Snell, drum major and casting director for Drumline Live, a touring show highlighting the musical traditions of the United States' Historically Black Colleges and Universities. "The team makes a great play and you hear the crowd, then the band is great and you hear the crowd: There's so much more going on to keep you entertained."

In the 2002 sleeper hit movie Drumline, Nick Cannon plays a particularly talented snare drummer who joins one of the country's most respected marching bands. As in real life, the musicians find themselves in serious rivalries with other schools, with the high-precision bands interrupting each other midperformance, and the fans as rabid about the high-energy music and dancing as they are about the football.

"There are situations where we're going into a hostile territory, and it's like, 'Hey, you're not our band. What are you doing here? Get out of here!'" he says.



With a cast consisting of nearly 40 top musicians from throughout the South, the rivalry is the first thing the cast of Drumline Live had to overcome, Snell--an alumni of top drumline school Florida A&M--says. "At the end of the day, we do respect each other's organizations, we respect our rivals, we all represent the same band. We love our craft and we want to promote it.

"But, when it comes to Saturday night, if you are cross that stadium, you're not my friend!"

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'Drumline Live' brings marching band tradition to theater stage

"Drumline Live" brings the black marching band tradition to the theatrical stage for the first time in a 62-engagement U.S. tour, followed by dates in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

When actor Orlando Jones’ character in 2002’s “Drumline” urges his university marching band to “hit ‘em with a little ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’,” the band director’s not talking about serving up a sedate recital of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s famous 1900 orchestral work. This is musical warfare, and the operatic interlude’s dizzying sting of frenetic 16th-note runs becomes a weapon in a half-time battle to outdo high-stepping, percussion-pounding and brass-blasting opponents on the football field.

The film, starring Nick Cannon as a Harlem street performer recruited to join a drumline at a southern university, helped reignite interest in a tradition begun more than 50 years ago at Florida A&M University, where marching-band performances were as much about the high-energy music as the funky, athletic choreography.

“Drumline Live,” a stage show set to take over the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord (N.H.)on Wednesday, March 4, serves up a powerful drumroll in homage to that legacy with a cast of performers from some of the United State’s top Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), institutions established prior to 1964 with the mission to educate black Americans.





NH Weekend recently asked “Drumline Live” creator and musical director Don P. Roberts about the powerhouse production, which features the rousing and rhythmic sounds of the likes of brass masters Earth, Wind and Fire and Tower of Power, along with contemporary hip-hop and R&B selections.

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