[ColoradoTree]

It seems to me that an awful lot of the comments here fail to acknowledge an important and seemingly obvious point: The Band is an undergraduate institution and reflects undergraduate sensibilities. There is no reason it should appeal to the sense of humor of a -- to pick a totally random demographic -- 103-year-old Georgia Tech graduate.

When I was an undergrad, I thought the Band was uproariously funny. Forty years later, less so, partly due to the increasing administration/AD censorship, partly due to the fact that my sense of humor isn't quite so rip-snorting as it used to be. If I were to attend a Roble party next week, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't care for the music, either. (And for the same reason, the point that the LSJUMB has been doing the same stuff for 60 years and it's gotten stale is also way off the mark. It's not stale to Stanford students, who haven't been hearing it for six decades.)

The bottom line is that at Stanford sporting events I attend, the arrival of the Band invariably injects a palpable note of excitement, and that goes double at events away from the Unversity where the general environment is not striking sparks on its own. I don't think the crowd at the Santa Monica pep rally would have lasted 10 minutes without the LSJUMB and Dollies, if indeed it would have ever assembled in the first place.

So Iowans didn't like the Band? Tough. It wasn't playing for them. Twenty-five years from now, when they make the Rose Bowl again, they'll know to go to the bathroom during halftime.

This.

[ColoradoTree]

It seems to me that an awful lot of the comments here fail to acknowledge an important and seemingly obvious point: The Band is an undergraduate institution and reflects undergraduate sensibilities. There is no reason it should appeal to the sense of humor of a -- to pick a totally random demographic -- 103-year-old Georgia Tech graduate.

When I was an undergrad, I thought the Band was uproariously funny. Forty years later, less so, partly due to the increasing administration/AD censorship, partly due to the fact that my sense of humor isn't quite so rip-snorting as it used to be. If I were to attend a Roble party next week, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't care for the music, either. (And for the same reason, the point that the LSJUMB has been doing the same stuff for 60 years and it's gotten stale is also way off the mark. It's not stale to Stanford students, who haven't been hearing it for six decades.)

The bottom line is that at Stanford sporting events I attend, the arrival of the Band invariably injects a palpable note of excitement, and that goes double at events away from the Unversity where the general environment is not striking sparks on its own. I don't think the crowd at the Santa Monica pep rally would have lasted 10 minutes without the LSJUMB and Dollies, if indeed it would have ever assembled in the first place.

So Iowans didn't like the Band? Tough. It wasn't playing for them. Twenty-five years from now, when they make the Rose Bowl again, they'll know to go to the bathroom during halftime.

This.