neonvincent

Today I'm posting a video of my last performance with the UCLA Solid Gold Sound, the 1980 Mirage Bowl in Tokyo between UCLA and Oregon State University. Here, I'm merely a tuba player, although I think I was also squad leader. I did not teach the flags for this game, although I did select them. Instead, one of the sisters who designed the uniforms did. I think the acting director (remember, F. Kelly James is in the hospital supposedly recovering but actually dying from a stroke at this time) appointed her, but I'm not sure.

She later replaced me as flag instructor, which was somewhat of a surprise to me, but I had prepared for the possibility for other reasons. Remember, I wrote that the personality of the band changed when James fell ill and that I became less and less welcome there. I decided to get out at the end of my fourth year instead of sticking around for another semester. That required me to appeal a class that I had failed twice. The appeal succeeded, so I was able to leave in June 1981 instead of December 1981. However, I didn't tell anyone at school, so I reapplied for the position. The idea was that I'd appoint a different member of the flag line to be my assistant, quit over the summer, then have her succeed me. That didn't work. What did happen was that the sister who taught the flags in Tokyo came up to me at a Spring flag practice and gloated that she was now flag instructor (the two of us hadn't gotten along in years by this point). I replied that I wasn't going to be instructor, as I was graduating (that was the first time I told anyone at school). That took the wind out of her sails, as she realized she wasn't taking anything away from me. That incident confirmed that I had done the right thing by graduating when I did. It was time to leave.

As for the performance, I had said that it would show the band's continued transition to corps style. The opening and closing of the show are tunes that either would work for a drum corps (Overture in B flat) or are drum corps standards (Appalachian Spring). The middle of the show is still a standard theme show (Disney, which the band did for the opening of Tokyo Disneyland). There are a few places where squads of four still appear, but they're nearly invisible elsewhere. As for the sound, it was miked by a bunch of guys in white running around the field. The good news is that the band is loud. The bad news is that it screwed up the balance and at first the timing.

The video shows the entire halftime, which is nearly a half hour long. OSU's performance took up nearly 27 minutes, which I didn't remember taking that long. UCLA's show starts about 26:50 and ends about 35:30. We prepared a normal length halftime show. Afterwards, both bands form the word Mirage and play the Mitsubishi Mirage car jingle (I remember that) and then "YMCA" and "America the Beautiful" (I forgot that). We then marched into a Sigma Lambda formation, which stood for other cars Mitsubishi made (the game was an advertising event for Mitsubishi) before leaving the field.

Watch on YouTube

That's it for my adventures with the UCLA Band for now. If more videos from my time with the band become available, I might return to this series. In the meantime, happy holidays!