The STU feels like Poo

[Havoc City]

Look, I am not in the know, so there may be reasons, but why is there not a movement within the VCU fan community to bring Ryan back? The band needs help. You see a shot of them on TV these days and they look dead, they are NOT the PEPPA's They are starting to remind me of the old Drexal pep band with the 70yo director back in the CAA days.

But I will have to say watching the GooMoo game last night there was no student involvement and even the Green Machine sounds like it has lost a step. Maybe it's a generational thing.

Hmm...like a petition on change.org?

 

[AlienAiden]

How can someone only name single digit cereals in 30 seconds? Come on man.

 

[Newboy]

How can someone only name single digit cereals in 30 seconds? Come on man.

Right, they did better with the candy bars.

 

[rammed]

OK, on this subject...it is all about having someone really good and detailed when it comes to a game day experience. Right now VCU does not have that. They have a routine. They need spontaneity.

This is spot on. It is more about passion and energy versus technically executing a routine. In hindsight, I under appreciated this dimension. I was wrong and hope we can figure it out.

 

[Newboy]

I am not really sure what the point of the contest when the little girl was blindfolded to look for Kroger gift certificates. Why not just have a 10 second spot to announce that Kroger is donating money to Feedmore?

 

[TTL PKG]

I am not really sure what the point of the contest when the little girl was blindfolded to look for Kroger gift certificates. Why not just have a 10 second spot to announce that Kroger is donating money to Feedmore?

EXACTLY!!!!!!! Its not like Kroger was going to say you know what this 5 year old didnt find 2 of the cheerleaders so we arent donating 150 meals.

 

[HAVOC still lives here]

Yo my bad! you are so right! That was 150% your recomedation. It was so so so fire too. Reggie Pace, one of the founders of NoBS told me after we started playing it, that he was at a game and heard us play it and started getting hype. He felt like it was a black mans national anthem. Obviously a bit tongue and cheek there BUT it goes back to your point of how many of the guys knew it and could rock with it. Also after playing some of those songs in Barclays we had free reign to do whatever we wanted in the building.

I tell you another favorite.... was when we FINALY won the A10 title and we played Trophies. Bri was there all broke up and everyone was exhausted and excited. It was just great. Then we ended with Empire State of Mind by Jay with Alicia Keys.

That Miley Cyrus performance in particular was amazing because, and im sure its been said in the past, but I was told and you can sorta tell in other videos that the refs extended the timeout. They were waiting for us to finish. It was such a big moment. Even the opposing players were like WTF is going on. Honestly I was so nervous that the whole thing was going to be a huge and incredible bust BUT at the point we were there and it was sink or swim.

Text me or DM me I have some interesting information that id like to share and get your take on it. Thanks for the memories

How about making new memories? Any chance for a comeback?

 

[Ramdog]

We had so few fans in the end zone they threw in the towel on rolling out the havoc banner

 

[VCU Heel]

So I was at the game today, and im going to give my opinion on things that I havent given my opinion on since ive been gone. Whenever I do something like this it pisses some people off, makes some people cheer, and leaves some scratching their head wondering if I graduated highschool. The truth is all the way home I thougt about starting a thread about the atmosphere at our arena and its decline in recent years. It just so happens when I got home this thread exists already.....

Ill start with the good news. I was just at a UVA game and while some of their in-game flow was better and they had some fringe better use of displays and placements their atmosphere is in my opinion super lame. Its a great venue to go and watch a game that you dont care about. Thats how it felt to me. Our atmosphere has always felt better than that. ALWAYS! I have never felt we were like a UVA, UR, W&M. The band at UVA was ugh not great..... and I think everyone on here knows what I mean. We are very very lucky with what we have had and have. That goes for all aspects. More good news is we have a lot of people that care, and you guys care a lot!

Here is the bad news........ Our atmosphere SUCKS compared to what it was, and it gets a bit worse every season in my humble opinion. Ive waited this long to speak because I wanted to make sure it didnt sound like sour grapes on my part. I wanted to make sure I didnt have a bias and I was being fair to the admin, band, team, and all involved. Bottom line is while its a good product (dont forget we still have a good product) but its a far cry from what it was and we have stopped moving forward and are actually moving backward.

The band has a lot of problems and the students arent the problems. I know there are a couple of band members on this forum so ill put this mildly but it seems some of the choices of songs and timing are questionable. Even today and today was about as good as ive heard it. Can I add though that those tubas today YUMMY!!!! I LOVE A GOOD HIGH SCHOOL BAND DAY! Anyway.... Replication without understanding why youre doing it comes across hollow, and thats the best I can explain whats happening. I did my best to show the current band director why I did what I did, but the thought it would ever go down like this didnt cross my mind. If in some alternate world I ever came back things are so off with the abnd right not it seems, I would likely change almost everything. WAR, Havoc you fear, especially if I felt I couldnt get the buy in back. It just feels like it needs a fresh start. Plus I had plans in the works that I never got to move forward with that was hopefully going to make things much better.

The timeouts are structured weird. The hype lady is weird. I feel funny saying that since she tried to drag me on twitter once so it seems like my sweet revenge but shes just not good at it. Her and Ed are besties though. The thing about Melissa Chase at UR before she moved to Houston, Melissa was darn darn good! I dont like the idea but she made it as good as you could in my opinion. Bree is dry and there seems to be a lag. The material she has to deal with doesnt help her either. Also thats more of a Kelli Lemon crowd...... Just my two cents

Look covid is covid. Stop blaming it. We all take that L. But we also cant adjust down to it. As a matter of fact if I were in position I take this time to raise the expectation higher for atmosphere, WITH the understanding that covid is a limiting factor but you darn sure dont act like a victim and say "well covid has us in a bind so we get what we get" BULLpoop! Thats why weve got what weve got right now.

If anyone has any specific questions or concerns feel free to chat through DM or on here. Some of the band stuff in the past ive seen posted hasnt always been the most accurate soooooo. Like I always say I can only speak to things within the organization when I was there obviously. Everythng after I was gone is observation.

Ryan Kopacsi

I was at a game a bit back and counted just one tuba in the Peppas.

 

[Ramdog]

I was at a game a bit back and counted just one tuba in the Peppas.

darn..those tuba guys back in the day really got into it

 

[WestEndEd]

This is spot on. It is more about passion and energy versus technically executing a routine. In hindsight, I under appreciated this dimension. I was wrong and hope we can figure it out.

In the good old days, we often had games that were not on TV, and didn't have t schedule around TV time outs.
I feel this is a huge under raed reason things are less spontaneous.

 

[2x210us]

darn..those tuba guys back in the day really got into it

I was partial to the red headed female trumpet(?) player

 

[DisplacedRam]

I was partial to the red headed female trumpet(?) player

 

[VAHills]

To really get the students to lock in, we're going to need to get consistently ranked, or make another deep NCAA run. Really, just some more high-profile success than we've had over the last 5-6 years. A buddy of mine is an Auburn grad, he retweeted this the other day. I feel confident most of these students didn't go to Auburn because of their basketball team, but it's a can't miss experience for them right now.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1484637187786297354

 

[VCUPepBandRules]

I was at a game a bit back and counted just one tuba in the Peppas.

We currently have 3 tuba students in the band, I think the fewest since I joined in 2010, and were down to 1 over the winter break. The problem is that there just aren't that many tubas to be had right now at VCU, even in the School of Music and their concert bands are struggling without them. The funny thing is that one of our tuba players plays the oboe in the school of music as her primary, and there are 3 oboists, which is unheard of. These things go in cycles, with one section becoming hard hit after a graduating class leaves, but this year has been especially bad for the tubas. Fortunately, we do have a few graduates that still come and play, as well as a couple kats from VUU that like to join us, but that's all dependent on their schedules as they have their own events to attend, or classes to teach. Next year should be better, there were several tuba players at our HS band day that are planning on coming to VCU and joining the band, and the ones we do have won't be graduating for a couple more years...