Kiffin's energizing the team, how can we energize the crowd?
by Joel Hollingsworth on Apr 15, 2009 7:32 AM EDT
in Tennessee Volunteer Football
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PrintLane Kiffin and the Chimera are pumping new life into the Tennessee football program in a variety of ways. Whether it's an innovative model for a superstar coaching staff, trash-talking to well-established opponents with better track records of success, or throwing every position but one open for competition to all-comers, they're infusing energy into a program that had become stagnant.
Kiffin unveiled the latest trick yesterday when he suddenly blasted hip hop music through the loudspeakers just before the last goal line drill at yesterday's practice. This is probably not all that inventive for a lot of programs out there, but for stodgy old Tennessee, it's doing cartwheels on the moon, and according to Chris Walker, the intensity level immediately jumped 10 notches. An offense that had been beaten 6-2 on the day once again refused to end practice and won the next three snaps.
The enthusiasm of the coaching staff is infectious, affecting even sedate bloggers:
We still don't know if these guys can coach or win games, but it is becoming increasingly clear that they will continue to be interesting. I mean, can you imagine [the CRUNK incident] happening on the sideline during a Florida game at Neyland Stadium? The crowd might actually become electric again. Those cheering on and adding to the bootstrapped enthusiasm might actually drown out the tsk-tsking of the sundress and down in front crowd. The players might actually dance and skip and sprint onto the field in anticipation of something fantastic happening.
. . . .
Can you imagine six Bruce Pearl clones -- it's not just Orgeron, apparently -- standing on tables all over campus pumping life back into Tennessee football? I can, and it's making me want to rip off my Van Heusen Wrinkle Free RIGHT NOW!
We were quickly, and rightly, brought back down to earth after that post, though, with this comment from jimvols:
It's hard to get crunk when the only music we ever hear at Neyland Stadium is Toby Keith, some clone of him or some awful new age "hard rock". Although I do remember at one point in the beginning of the Alabama game last year they did play "Put On" and players started dancing and the student section went wild. That was fun. Anyway they seriously ought to talk to the guy who picks the stadium music, at least show him some youtube videos of Virginia Tech playing Enter Sandman…that whole place starts jumping up and down. Seriously most of the videos and music they play during football games put me to sleep . . . .
That sparked an entire conversation about the choice of music and video at Neyland during games, which I want to revive due to Kiffin's energy-inducing song selection at yesterday's practice.
So here's my question to you:
With the new era of Tennessee football commencing this fall, what new songs should The Pride of the Southland Marching Band add to its repertoire? What should it get rid of once and for all? What would you like to see on the JumboTron, and what do you never want to see on the JumboTron again?
A few ideas to get you started. First, I would absolutely love to hear the PotSMB play Tradition. We used the song first to recap the 4OT game against Kentucky in 2007 and again as a video tribute to Fulmer (shown below), but it would work in just about any Tennessee football context. Ignore the video if you'd like, but imagine the possibilities of the quicker portions of the song being played during timeouts at Neyland:
What else? Frankly, I don't know.Consider this your opportunity to brainstorm.
Detroit Rock City? Apart from the makeup and costumes, this is actually a very good song. ("Get up! Everybody's gonna move their feet. Get down! Everybody's gonna leave their seat.") Back in my rock band days, this was consistently one of the most well-received songs of the night, mostly due to the instrumental portions.
Or . . . a re-working of this, at least the chorus, maybe, may be a natural choice in light of the crunky UT/Wild Boys routine:
So . . . what do y'all got?
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Gotta Go
I hate to bring this one up, but Tennessee Jed has to go. I understand how well the lyrics work, but the Grateful Dead is about as close to a polar opposite to football excitement as you can get. They play it with that JumboTron spot and you can just watch a wave of relaxation cross the whole stadium.
PotSMB should also can "Livin' on a Prayer"
Do they realize how much opposing fans mock that song when they play it? Last year, that song charged up the Alabama fans and put Tennessee fans into a shell. Not the effect they were looking for.
First Selection…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0g8tvStx9U
New song and Crunk song….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9szo2SoMJUY
And this one is for the Crowd more seen at basketball but would be awesome in Neyland and I think they may have used it before
YES!!!1 to the first one.
Lyrically, it’s a song you would have no problem playing in a family environment. The beat is solid and the theme is perfect.
I’m not as high on the second one, but that’s purely an opinion thing. It’d work well.
As to the third, if we did get the whole crowd grooving, the chorus line would indeed be fantastic in Neyland.
by David Hooper on Apr 15, 2009 9:44 AM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, that's a great UT defense one.
It carries the feel of those punishing defenses from years like ’98 and ’01.
by David Hooper on Apr 15, 2009 9:44 AM EDT up reply actions
I would like to hear the band play O Fortuna
Think awesome gatorade commercials with Peyton Manning, Dwayne Wade, and others. I’m a big fan of bands playing classical music as opposed to adopting junk versions of junk pop songs (cough cough Livin on a Prayer). There are some exceptions (I like when they play Crazy Train), but in general I’m not a fan.
We’ve got to find a way to work Swagga Like Us into our gameday, somewhere. Not only is our team trying to get its ‘swag back,’ but there are even some lines that are directly applicable. “Noone has swagger like these four guys” [perhaps in reference to the final version of our Goon Squard]. In reality, we could probably only get away with playing the chorus, but it’s still pretty awesome, and I think it would get the team fired up.
That'd be cool.
There’s a ton of classical stuff out there. In the Hall of the Mountain King would also be fitting for Rocky Top, and I believe Apocalyptica did a juked-up version of it.
Now that you mention “junk pop songs”, an interesting trend: pep bands often play music from about 20 years earlier than whatever the year is (in my band time in the ‘90s, the ’70s music was all over the place). I think it’s because the band directors were youths/young adults at that time and it’s the music that jazzes them up the most.
by David Hooper on Apr 15, 2009 9:48 AM EDT up reply actions
(gets on his soap box)
First, things we should never, ever play/do again:
“Hey Baby” – Why is it a requirement that every band in the SEC use this song? The Gators do it better, thus we shouldn’t be doing it at all.
Sending the band into the stands to play Rocky Top when we’re getting killed. In 2003, they were WAY too close to the Georgia section when the Dawgs were up 41-14, and the UGA fans absolutely ate it up.
I’m torn on “Livin’ on a Prayer” – it sounds awesome and it sounds even more awesome when students sing along…but I can hear about a dozen announcers going “Well, the band’s playing Livin’ on a Prayer, and with the Vols down three scores that’s about all they’ve got right now…”
Things we should absolutely keep:
- The theme from Gladiator – last year, one of the KNS writers misidentified this as a new song and said we should never use it again. In fact, the band has been playing this since 2002, and it’s great when the students use the shakers with the downbeat.
- “Ants Marching”, but in pregame only. I’m a ridiculous mark for DMB, but even I know that song doesn’t really generate in-game excitement.
Things we should never do:
- NO MUSIC THRU THE SPEAKERS. NONE. ZERO. USE THE BAND. Maybe I’m old fashioned in my late 20s, but to me schools that use the piped-in music either have crappy bands, or they have no tradition. VT’s thing with Enter Sandman is very cool, I’ve seen it in person twice…but they do it in part because their band is a joke. Watch other team’s bands when they perform at halftime – PotSMB is elite, son. We need to use them more. Country music thru the speakers is what they do at Kentucky, rap music thru the speakers is what they do everywhere…tradition demands more of the Pride, and less of anything else.
I think the band should be the centerpiece
but I can’t say that I think we shouldn’t pipe any music in at all.
I'm the worst one to offer suggestions on this topic.
.. as I like Tennessee Jed, understand the sentiment hooper but its one of my favorite tunes.
Also I mentioned this before right after the crunk incident, the sundresses can need to stay. Thats one of the SEC’s biggest asset as far as I’m concerned and probably one of the top 3 things I look forward to about football season.
"The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it."
Why are there so many old fogies on this site...?
I love me some Tradition, and i love me some Tennessee Jed and even some Classical… but lets think about this for a min.
If you want to attract middle schoolers and high schoolers to your program (yes I said middle schoolers) then we need to be Hyped Up and Crunk. Is it possible to get crunk with Tennessee Jed. Maybe? But is it happening? No. We need some rap and some metal and some techno. Most football players I know listen to heavy metal and Rap to get themselves ready to play and to work out. Why should we all the sudden change that for games?
I know Rocky Top Talk is very conservative and they don’t kindly to new FULMERIZED. Thats fine but in the real world things are a little different. We need to be somewhat populist towards the younger generation and not the older generation. Sure the older generation pays the bills but the younger generation is the catalyst that can make a program explode!
GET NEW MUSIC STOP BEING STICKS IN THE MUD!
I actually agree with you
Which is why I wrote this post. Our stuff is stale, and we need new. Of course we’re all going to gravitate toward making suggestions from what we know — and no, I don’t know a lot of rap. I’m certainly not against it, though, and my musical tastes are probably more diverse than most.
I do think, though, that you’re confusing the “conservative” tone here with an unwillingness to adapt, and if that’s the case, I just think you’re wrong. Face it: blogs are new FULMERIZED. ;-) We here are pretty open to new stuff even if we’d prefer to keep the site clean. Those are two completely different issues. I’m all for rap and whatever the kids are listening to provided it can live up to both standards.
I, like hooper, love some of your suggestions. Keep them coming.
Rocky Top Talk
by Joel Hollingsworth on Apr 15, 2009 11:52 AM EDT up reply actions
If we do use rap/metal/techno...
It needs to be original. Don’t use Enter Sandman (…isn’t this “old school” by now?) because VT uses it. Don’t use Jump Around or Zombie Nation because Wisconsin and dozens of other schools use it.
When I was on campus the cheerleaders wanted to start that “WE ARE…U-T!” chant. I hated that (and am glad it didn’t take), because that’s Penn State’s thing. We have to stop looking at what other schools are doing and we would be cool too, and get more creative. I still think more of that creativity should involve the Pride, but if it’s going to be piped in, it needs to be something no one else is doing.
And I think we can all agree that country music isn’t accomplishing any of these goals.
by Will Shelton on Apr 15, 2009 12:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Yep
I love country music, but not for football.
And how about this instead of WE ARE — U-T:
U-T!
WILD BOYS! One side of the stadium to the other.
Rocky Top Talk
by Joel Hollingsworth on Apr 15, 2009 1:03 PM EDT up reply actions
I was at a UCF game a few years ago when we were using the "WE ARE ... MARSHALL" chant to mock them.
That’s my main interaction with the “WE ARE” chant, so given that I’d be in favor of never trying to start that one.
by Chris Pendley on Apr 15, 2009 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions
Side note: the band DOES know Zombie Nation.
I heard it at a basketball game a few years ago. You want to know what humor is? Humor is the staccato-fueled band trying to play techno. I didn’t realize there were pauses between the notes.
by Chris Pendley on Apr 15, 2009 6:46 PM EDT up reply actions
The best thing that happened on the JumboTron last year
Was that basketball promo with the slow pan-up to Pearl’s face, and everybody goes “BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCEEEE…” Yes please.
by Will Shelton on Apr 15, 2009 12:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Well-timed post, this.
Wouldn’t you know that Chris Low releases an interview with Chris Walker…
A lot has been made of the fact that Lane Kiffin is only 33, which maybe helps him relate to college players. Do you buy that?
CW: He definitely relates. We’re playing music before our practices, songs that get us hyped, and that comes from him. He wants us to be comfortable, but he’s also one of the main ones out there jumping around with us. It’s exciting to see the head coach out there in the middle of us jumping around. He just has that confident swagger about him that rubs off on all of us. Last year, we really didn’t have that swagger, but we’re starting to build it back with the new coaches.
What kind of music do you listen to before practice?
CW: Usually hip-hop. That’s what gets us going. Sometimes, somebody will throw some oldies on there, but we tell Joe [Harrington] to turn that off and get the right stuff on.
Awesome.
I love Tennessee Jed as much as anyone on this site, but that song never made someone want to kill another human being. And Livin on a Prayer only makes people want to kill themselves, or any Bon Jovi for that matter. I’m not the biggest rap/metal fan in the world, but if that makes players play harder and win games, I don’t think there are too many Tennessee Fans who wouldn’t be for that. Besides, like someone said earlier, when 13-17 year old guys come in for visits and they see all the players, coaches, and crowd “gettin’ crunk”, that’s going to be a huge sell pitch. When a 17 year old recruit walks in to the stands, takes his seat, and everyone’s relaxing, that just isn’t the game atmosphere people like to play in. So to me, really, it isn’t about whether the fans like this song or don’t like that one, it’s about the game atmosphere the music creates.
Wanna hear some music?
Well said
Right on.
Rocky Top Talk
by Joel Hollingsworth on Apr 15, 2009 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions
And for the record...
(I don’t like Tennessee Jed.)
But setting that aside, Tennessee Jed is about as invigorating as Margaritaville.
by David Hooper on Apr 15, 2009 3:16 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
link
If we could get the line “who knew he’d be the one to put the west in flames” or whatever to the south it’d be more awesome.
Also, the chorus to BOOM by POD, you know “BOOM! Here comes the BOOM! Ready or not .. Here come the boys from the South..”
by bobo_the_vol on Apr 15, 2009 12:40 PM EDT up reply actions
They can play whatever they want, as long as it goes well with our new smoke machines...
Lou Brock loves Lamp.
by birdjam on Apr 15, 2009 1:50 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs
WHOOPS... no links!
If we want to rock people out and get people jacked……
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPEWkZ54Fx4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9JZHeR3xmM
A lot of these are great suggestions, but here's the problem
We needs songs for the band. The JumboTron puts people in t.v. mode, watch, be entertained. We need something interactive, something that the band can have cued up for just the right time. The JumboTron stuff always seems too loud, drowns out the atmosphere, and then shuts off abruptly, leaving everyone just staring at a blank screen like they’re at home on their couches and we just came back from commercial.
Rocky Top Talk
by Joel Hollingsworth on Apr 15, 2009 3:10 PM EDT reply actions
Some of them can be made for the band.
The one I YES!!!1’d in Big Beefe’s post would be pretty easy to transliterate to marching band parts. Percussion and tuba parts would import directly. The women in the background would go to the woodwinds and french horn/low trumpets. There’s already trumpet stuff in it for the lead trumpets. The vocals would go to trombones/euphoniums/etc. And that “Tennessee!” chant in there could go to the crowd. I bet we could even get Orange Nation to participate for a change.
But yeah, a lot of them don’t work well for the band. Beyond the problem of coordinated JumboTron videos, one huge advantage of the band is that they can be a lot more time-flexible with the action on the field, so modernizing the pep band charts would be fantastic.
by David Hooper on Apr 15, 2009 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm partial to having an arrangement made
of this. The bridges could be removed and the driving stuff condensed into a crescendoing loop.
by David Hooper on Apr 15, 2009 3:57 PM EDT up reply actions
Haha, yes, I love it
And for when we play Bama…
The song isn’t really all that applicable, but the title sure is.
Have they ever played
Copperhead Road (Steve Earle)?
The perfect feetball song is....
…an oldie but a bestie.
We need Pantera’s “Walk”. In the vein of “Enter Sandman” but sooooooooo much better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj2xSwOY0xs
We played it when we won the state championship and it will encite nothing but aggressiveness.
Hey y'all!! Welcome to Knoxville, Kiffin Kounty, Tennessee! Home of the best koachin' in the kountry. Now y'all put on this uniform and see how it fits. Woo-wee!!! Yaw yaw yaw FOOTBAW!!!
Get music the players will perform best to
We want the team to perform best, so whatever music will do that I want it played.
Some ideas though…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv28cijGFDo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ZL6tdfVic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5NYm7JFIi8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sh3Tto7P5s (mainly beginning and chorus)
Florida Sucks!
Could you imagine Stomp
With 107,000 fans stomping to the down beat? Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan, that’s awesome.
Wanna hear some music?
Stomp is doable with the band.
It’d take a good arranger, but it’s workable.
by David Hooper on Apr 15, 2009 11:32 PM EDT up reply actions
I just think doing the Crowd Stomp
Could sort’ve be a UT thing. Like Wisconsin’s jump around and PSU and Zombie Nation. Not that no ones every stomped before, but I dont think they have with this song. Maybe I’m wrong. In any case, I just think it would be deafening to hear 100 thousand people stomp at the same time along with the band.
Wanna hear some music?
CLICK CLICK BOOM!
first of all we must never get rid of rocky top! we must also remember that this is tennessee and country music is our bread and butter so we cant get rid of it entirely. songs like chicken fried and kenny chesney’s touchdown tennessee are okay. there are some other good country songs out there that wont lull the crowd to sleep. but does anyone know that song they would play right before kickoff. 60 min men? idk but some good hip hop and rock like click click boom would be good. some acdc “for those about to rock”. a bunch more but for real something needs to be done to the music without taken away from our southern traditions.
GOTTA LOVE ROCKY TOP
by shades_of_orange on Apr 15, 2009 11:48 PM EDT reply actions
If I remember correctly
from going to the UGA game last year they play “Click Click Boom” right before kickoff as their hype-up highlight video. I remember thinking to myself, “oh wow, hooow original.” It’s really kinda lame, typical almost. (oh I get it, you timed up some guy getting hit to when the singer says BOOM, how inventive, bravo…). It seems like alot of people use that song, or maybe I’ve just seen it in 1,000 different highlight videos on youtube. I feel like we can think of something better….I do like shades_of_orange’s other idea of using AC/DC, then again maybe I’m just biased I love AC/DC….
Sorry if I come off I bit cynical I’ve been in the library all day and I still have two more Case Synopsis to do before class tomorrow :(….
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