There was a football game today, and the UAPB marching band won
Meet the Marching Musical Machine of the Mid-South. M4 for short. The 240-piece marching band accompanies the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s Division I football team, the Golden Lions, which has had a single win this season out of seven games and which lost 45-3 against the Razorbacks in a historic in-state game at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock today. It’s the first time the Razorbacks have faced an in-state opponent since 1944. The Hogs, much-lionized in the Sam Pittman era and rightly so, won handily and swiftly. Nobody expected things to go much differently.
But on the south side of the stadium around 9:45 a.m. today, the Golden Lions’ fighting spirit was alive and well. A caterpillar-shaped crowd gathered along the snaking lines of the marching band’s ranks as M4 assembled for entry into the stadium gates. “Give it to ’em!,” a woman shouted at the woodwinds. “I wanna hear ya ROAR!” Another woman stopped short to pick up her cell phone, answering her caller with a “Hey! We’re over here waitin’ to hear the band tune up, see if they do somethin’!” A piccolo player milled around with a quizzical expression and asked, “What are we supposed to be doing?” And then, drum major Kendric Kelley answered that question with a series of short, sharp shrieks from a tiny pink whistle. The snare drums added some further instructions, and the band was suddenly on the move — a sea of black and gold in perpetual motion. UAPB sophomore and “Golden Girl” dancer Caris Bates followed alongside, toting a rolling suitcase behind her with some of the band’s accessories.
“HBCU in the house!,” someone shouted. A 20-member-strong alto sax section paraded by, then half as many tubas, all cradling their instruments in white gloves and emitting a “Whoo!” in unison at some imperceptible cue. A singsong chant broke out: “Marching musical machine of the Mid-South! Let’s get funky!” Parents of members of the band cheered them on with fervor that’s too often reserved for the football team.
And from the looks of that halftime show, it’s no wonder. M4’s sound is gargantuan, and these instrumentalists are uncommonly keen multitaskers on the field, managing not only to play the notes and move in pristine geometrical formations, but to dance while they do it. They did the running man. They stepped. A breakdancing quartet of drum majors, sporting tall white cylindrical shako hats, did backbends and touched the ground behind them with the tips of their hats. They spelled out “UAPB” on the field and went into spacious grid formations (marching bands are the Original Social Distancers) without losing an ounce of volume. The Golden Lions dancers — like majorettes, but “no batons,” Bates had affirmed — did cartwheels and vogues and body rolls. You know that cool street dance move where you bend far enough backward that you can touch your hand to the ground behind you and then push off of it to pop back up? The WHOLE BAND DID IT. In unison. AND raised their instruments to the sky with the other hand. The crowd went nuts.
Read more: https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2021/10/23/there-was-a-football-game-today-and-the-uapb-marching-band-won
Photo: Brian Chilson
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