Anybody catch the drum corp (probably a band) backing up the Black Eyed Peas during the Super Bowl halftime show?

Kind of reminded me some of those southern college bands that rock it out and have a good time doing it. We don't get to see much of that in the Big 10 unfortunately. The movie Drum Line captured a little of that style.

What did you do in the Corps? Baritone

What years were you a Corps member? 70's

Pete, I missed the Super Bowl, but have seen Drum Line a couple of times. If I remember right the bands in the picture were two of the better college ones in the South. If you want to see a Big Ten band, you have to go to a game since they very seldom show them at half time as it might cut into their commercial time.

They also showed a little of a band during the pre-game show, by mistake - could even tell they were playing "Malaguena". Looked and sounded pretty good, but there should be a law against playing that song anymore!

I was wondering during halftime who that band was, too. They have many of that type in Texas, which is pretty much drum corps style usually.

What did you do in the Corps? Snare; Drum Major; Drum Instructor/Arranger

What years were you a Corps member? 1970-73; 78-79

What are you talking about that half time show was a preview of DCI in 2012, I figure about one more rule change ought to do it.

For what is is worth, according to marching sport.com, the band at the super bowl was Prairie View A&M and numbered some 60 members.

The bands in Drum Line were Bethune-Cookman, Morris Brown, who were featured, Grambling, and Clark-Atlanta University.

We have a couple of that style band here in Orlando. One of them has a fantastic drum line - the stuff they play is like late-60's/early-70's drum corps stuff. Not always real clean, but fun to listen to and watch!

What did you do in the Corps? Snare; Drum Major; Drum Instructor/Arranger

What years were you a Corps member? 1970-73; 78-79

Greg – that might help if it replaces the ballerinas, mimes, guitar players, stage props, drum kits, keyboards, laptops, dancing bears, …………

What did you do in the Corps? Baritone

What years were you a Corps member? 70's

The pre game show band was TCU from Fort Worth. Remember they beat Wisconsin in the recent Rose Bowl (too bad Pittsburgh could do the same to the other Wisconsin team). The network showed part of TCUs performance at the Rose Bowl and they played Malaguena during that performance as well as Super Bowl pre-game. TCU sounds and marches (glides) like a DCI corps. A large number of the college bands from schools in the south in the SEC and ACC conferences (Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Virginia Tech, etc.) sound and glide like DCI corps. Big 10 (now 12), Pac 10 (now 12) and Big 12 (now 9 I think) bands haven’t adopted much of the DCI stuff unless you count UCLA playing a lot of Wayne Downey’s 1980s Blue Devils charts. And of course there is Texas A&M that is styled after a 1939 German Army Band (minus the goose step).

Didn’t watch half time show but Prairie View A&M would be a good fit for the Black Eyed Peas. Prairie View like the schools in the movie, Drumline, is an historically black southern university. These bands have their own style—showmanship, fast tempo and play loud. They are more interesting to watch than most major college football bands. However, they move so quickly that the sound quality suffers. When I watched Drumline, I was amazed at the sound quality for the marching scenes in the movie. But for the movie it’s my understanding recorded a group of studio musicians and dubbed the music into the film so the sound is so much cleaner than the college bands represented in the film. The wonders of Hollywood.

I am waiting for DCI to modify their rules so the Garfield-Bergen County-Allentown can have a Super Bowl Half Time type show. Although my ultimate rule modification is to see the Troopers do their entire show while riding horses.

Troopers on horses - now THAT would be a show!

And John is 100% right about the sound of those bands - usually terrible because of the overblowing. They also tend to use fiberglass tubas rather than metal, which is even worse. Kind of like blowing on PVC pipe. And their drums generally haven't been tuned since they came out of the boxes - in 1962...

What did you do in the Corps? Snare; Drum Major; Drum Instructor/Arranger

What years were you a Corps member? 1970-73; 78-79

I don't know if the modern Troopers corps has kids who could ride horses. But in the mid-60s their drum major was bowlegged and looked like he had just gotten off a horse. If they did their show on horses they could probably have their guard dressed as Indians and base their show on Custer's Last Stand.

With regard to the movie Drumline, there was a rumor for a while that the producers had the UCLA band in a studio to record the music. But that would have been difficult because of the musician's union. Also it wouldn't be too cool to have UCLA's band credited in a movie about black marching bands. The studio musicians don't have to be credited--just paid.

I can see it now - a new squad carrying gold pails and gold shovels.

I am sure it would be called the Pooper Scooper Squad.

What did you do in the Corps? Drumline

What years were you a Corps member? 1960-1965

I think we heard about John's "fantasy" Troopers before .. when we were talking once about "if drum corps marched with a show based on their name/ history theme".

Picture a "scout" show, a "Cavalier" show, a "pioneer" show, etc. Some get harder to imagine though ... what is a "Blue Star" show?
or a "Vanguard" show?

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What did you do in the Corps? drummer

What years were you a Corps member? 1958 -1963

I never took the Troopers thing to the extend of a show based on Custer's Last Stand. It would end like the 1976 Bridgemen show with everyone (except the Indians) laying prone on the field.

Probably need to start a new thread or find the old one. I think Bob S had a couple of ideas as well.

Begs the question(s), what exactly is an Imperial and what would our name based show be?

What did you do in the Corps? Baritone

What years were you a Corps member? 70's

Good Question!

Dictornary Definition: Imperial is a term that is used to describe something that relates to an empire, emperor, or the concept of imperialism. Imperials can be a term used to refer to an Imperial group or guard.

Based on this Imperials should mean a bunch of people who hang around with or guard the emperor. Rome had more emperors than any other country so they could do something based on that. Today I'd guess the corps would wear togas and maybe helmets like the USC Marching band. Maybe they're do something on the death of Julius Caesar. Of course they could really spice things up with something based on Nero or Caligula.

Interest that when I did a yahoo search on Imperials the Norwood Park Imperials was about 7th or 8th on the list (this website. There is a gospel group called the Imperials and of course Little Anthony and the Imperials.

Or a margarine...

What did you do in the Corps? Snare; Drum Major; Drum Instructor/Arranger

What years were you a Corps member? 1970-73; 78-79

I like the Nero or Caligula thing at least we could all make some money off the internet. Maybe even win a show, the more outrageous the more you win, right.