Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote:
Combine an idea five years in the making, an elite band of 225 members, 14 hours of onfield practice time and a theme featuring Mario Bros., Pac-Man and Zelda that appeals to both football fans and video gamers, and you wind up with more than 4 million views on YouTube.
That’s how the halftime show from the Ohio State University Marching Band on Saturday night became a national – and to some extent international – hit.
Oh, and thank the Ohio State football team, too.
“It was a unique coming together of a lot of things at the right time and right place,”OSU band director Jon Waters told The Plain Dealer on Tuesday morning. “As a band director, when you go into a halftime show when the team is leading, it makes the show better, it really does, because the fans are happy. So we were winning, it was a night game, the band looks great under the lights, it was a national TV game and a very highly touted game, and I think people’s emotions were just perfect to react the way they did to our show.”
It wasn’t just the 106,000 fans in Ohio Stadium who liked it. Waters said he received e-mails from those who saw the video of the nine-minute performance in places as far away as China and Australia. Even the Michigan band director sent a congrats, and several Ohio State football players wrote on their Twitter accounts about the performance after seeing the video Monday.
“I kind of feel like we won one for all the band guys around the country,” Waters said, “in bringing attention to what we do. Getting some recognition for all the hard work is a really wonderful byproduct of this whole thing.”
Man, this thing is making the rounds, but it’s a good thing to be making the rounds! Awesome video and an awesome looking and sounding band. Made me miss my days in marching band back in high school.