Nicole Robinson

The UW-Eau Claire marching band put the green and gold into Blugold Sunday.

Not only did they perform the halftime show at the homecoming game on Saturday, but for the first time ever, the Eau Claire marching band performed the halftime show at Lambeau Field on Sunday, when the Green Bay Packers played host to the New York Giants.

The Packers’ director of halftime activities chose the Eau Claire marching band after band director Randy Dickerson sent him the most recent CD of the marching band’s performances. Dickerson also described the show they planned to perform. Dickerson had wanted to perform at a Packers game and decided last year the band would be ready for this season, prompting him to call the Packers.

Every season, the Packers pick a Wisconsin university to perform a halftime show. UW-Madison performs one every year, as well as one other university. The last time the Eau Claire marching band performed at a professional football game was a Minnesota Vikings game in 1962.

“We’re going to be showing Wisconsin that Madison isn’t the only school with a marching band,” said sophomore trumpet player John Lanctin. A self-described “born-again Packer fan,” Lanctin also sees this opportunity as “extremely good publicity for the music department at Eau Claire.”

The marching band performed a James Brown-based show, the same one seen at the halftime performance during the homecoming game this past weekend. It was comprised of several songs, including “I Feel Good,” “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”

Dickerson said the practices before the performance were rigorous, but since marching band is a university course, he was unable to schedule more practice times outside of class. The marching band meets four times a week, for an hour and fifteen minutes each.

“The band is really growing,” said sophomore Darren LaPage, a trumpet player for the Eau Claire marching band. Although he’s not a Packer fan, LaPage said he believes this will be good publicity for the band, and is glad that the Packers gave them the opportunity to perform at halftime.

Sophomore drum major Tim Baumann sees the experience of performing at a professional football game and being on the field, as “something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.” Baumann also sees this as a great opportunity for marching band students who are also music education majors. Eventually, he said, they may teach a high school marching band of their own and have the opportunity to play at a bowl game, where this experience will help by showing how halftime professional football game performances work.

All 135 marching band students performed at the Packer game on Sunday, with no existing alternate positions. Dickerson is positive that this kind of attention will attract more students to marching band. In the past two years alone, the size of the marching band has nearly doubled. According to Dickerson, this opportunity allows Eau Claire “to get out there to showcase our band and show it to the state.”

While the FOX network does not air halftime shows, the Eau Claire marching band performance will be recorded onto a DVD, and university photographers were present at the game.

The Marching Band is also performing at the Blugold football game this weekend.

According to Dickerson, the marching band’s biggest upcoming event is an exhibition at Chippewa Falls High School on Oct. 9, when the Eau Claire marching band will perform in front of high school marching bands. This is where the marching band gets most of its recruitment, Dickerson said, and it’s exciting because all the high school students watching are involved in their school marching band and are interested in continuing playing through college.

The band’s next on-campus performance will be a stage show Oct. 25 in Gantner Concert Hall of the Haas Fine Arts Center.