[MUSIC PLAYING] SADIE GRIFFIN: Hello, everybody. I am Sadie Griffin with EagleAir Radio. Today, we will be discussing this year’s Crimson Corps marching season with Reece Loe. Reece is a freshman baritone during marching season and a trombone during concert season. OK, Reese, what was your favorite part of the season?
REECE LOE: Probably bonding with my section and the community that we had.
SADIE GRIFFIN: Did your section do anything together outside of band?
REECE LOE: We went to Brahms a lot.
[LAUGHTER]
SADIE GRIFFIN: Brahms is the place to meet up after practices.
REECE LOE: Yeah, and games.
SADIE GRIFFIN: Yeah, and games.
REECE LOE: [INAUDIBLE] after every football game.
SADIE GRIFFIN: What do you think you can learn from band but specifically marching band?
REECE LOE: You can obviously learn community– I mean, bonding with people– and you get to seek a lot of strong relationships with people, and probably the hand-eye coordination, and being able to just simply play an instrument.
SADIE GRIFFIN: You’re playing. You got to remember all those notes. And then you’re trying to remember to put your foot forward on count 3.
REECE LOE: Yeah.
SADIE GRIFFIN: What are some things we do in marching band?
REECE LOE: We do a lot of, obviously, marching. But we have to look at our phones a lot to find dots on the field that make the big picture, and then playing your music, playing your part, making sure you memorize your part, and watching the drum majors, Sadie–
[LAUGHTER]
–and then just overall, learning the things that we need to do.
SADIE GRIFFIN: And then one big part of marching band that I feel like not enough people acknowledge outside of band is our trips, the massive–
REECE LOE: Oh, my gosh.
SADIE GRIFFIN: –trips we take.
REECE LOE: Yes.
SADIE GRIFFIN: This year we went to Tennessee, and then we went to Saint Louis. What were those two trips like for you?
REECE LOE: There was a lot. It was really cold a couple times, but it was actually really fun. It was definitely an experience I will not forget.
SADIE GRIFFIN: What was your favorite part of those two trips?
REECE LOE: Actually, I’m going to say it’s probably the bus rides just because we were all either sleeping or super loud and crazy. There was no in-between.
[LAUGHS]
SADIE GRIFFIN: Yeah, honestly those– the bus rides were pretty fun.
REECE LOE: Yeah.
[CHATTER]
[MARCHING BAND PLAYS]
SADIE GRIFFIN: What was this year’s show, and what was it like?
REECE LOE: So our show was Behind Their Eyes. And it was definitely different than what you would think because– I mean, they played songs that were real songs, but they weren’t songs that people would know.
SADIE GRIFFIN: They were all pretty obscure.
REECE LOE: Yeah, which is good because it provided a good show, and we won quite a few competitions. But it was very vibrant, I feel like–
SADIE GRIFFIN: It was really vibrant.
REECE LOE: very abstract.
[CHUCKLES]
SADIE GRIFFIN: How many eyeballs do you think were on that field? That’s a question that everybody talks about–
REECE LOE: Ooh.
SADIE GRIFFIN: –during practices– how many eyeballs do you think are on the field right now?
REECE LOE: Probably 1,000 eyeballs.
SADIE GRIFFIN: Yeah, at least 1,000 eyeballs on that field.
REECE LOE: Yeah.
SADIE GRIFFIN: What are the late-night practices slash early morning practices like?
REECE LOE: They were definitely hardworking. He pushed us a lot.
SADIE GRIFFIN: It was definitely very chaotic.
REECE LOE: Yes.
SADIE GRIFFIN: The last thing you want is to come home from [INAUDIBLE] and then have to go to a two-hour long practice– the variety and the temperature for the practices.
REECE LOE: Yes, it was terrible.
SADIE GRIFFIN: We would have 90-degree mornings, and then we would have 40-, 32-degree mornings.
REECE LOE: Yes.
[MARCHING BAND PLAYS]
SADIE GRIFFIN: OK, the last question and the question that I want to know your opinion on most– do you think the band deserves more recognition and credit than it gets?
REECE LOE: Yes. We do get some recognition, but I feel like we should get more because I feel like we work extremely hard.
SADIE GRIFFIN: Marching season and football season are at the same time. Marching season is the biggest thing for us. It’s one of the best athletic things in the school. The football team– yes, they’re having an amazing year this year, but they get– there’s countless stories, just pointless stuff in the news. Somebody did something cool. And I don’t know anything about football.
REECE LOE: Football, right.
[CHUCKLES]
SADIE GRIFFIN: And then–
REECE LOE: They got a touchdown.
SADIE GRIFFIN: –they don’t even announce what we place when we take a 16-hour bus ride to Tennessee, get 10th place out of 40 bands from all over our area. And then the football team wins one game, and that’s suddenly a lot more important.
REECE LOE: When we made finals at Tennessee, that was only the second time we’ve ever made finals at a BOA competition.
SADIE GRIFFIN: Oh, yeah.
REECE LOE: And so–
SADIE GRIFFIN: We had a really good marching season this year too, and not many people know that. As you can tell, marching season is quite interesting. So many fun and cool things happen that we cannot even talk about them all.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That was Reece Loe and the marching band 2023 season. Thanks for tuning in today, and look out for more new stories coming soon. This is Sadie Griffin with Eagle A Radio signing off. The song used today is “Acoustic Shuffle” by Jason Shaw.