Exercise Your Right to Vote

...for the University of Georgia Redcoat Band. ESPN is hosting a battle of the bands and the winning school will receive $25,000. (But this isn't about the money, it's about bragging rights.) Several SEC schools are in the running in addition to Georgia--Auburn, Florida, and LSU. On the site, each school performs the Indiana Jones theme song.

Obviously, the Redcoats are tops. They sound the best, look the best, and, oh yeah, their flagline is easily the best so there's no reason to be undecided. Cast your ballot now.

A few other observations:
I do appreciate Florida's attempt at musical creativity by morphing from their signature rendition of the Jaws theme into the Indiana Jones song, but was that really the assignment? No.

LSU gets props for the Indy adventure costumes that the danceline is wearing. The mascot is decked out too. But where are the other auxiliaries? And why are they inside a building while everyone else performs outside? That's obviously going to affect the sound. Oh, and Les Miles showing up at the end? Don't care for it. For once, this is about the band.

Clemson's performance makes me very glad I never had to perform in purple spandex.

USC: Yet again inferior to the Southeastern Conference. And flagline: Butterfly, butterfly, row boat, row boat, drop spin, stir? Seriously, step up the choreography.

I guess I'm just not familiar with the UT Longhorn Band. Are there guys on their flagline? It's kind of hard to judge since they lamely stuck them in the back of band for the performance and evidently instructed them to just wave the flags back and forth, but I swear the one glimpse of the flag holders shows a guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And finally, if you read the "Participating Bands" info box at the bottom of the screen, you'll note that LSU and Auburn have each won the Sudler Trophy, an award recognizing "collegiate marching bands of particular excellence that have made outstanding contributions to the American way of life." (LSU won in 2002 and Auburn in 2004). What it doesn't say is that the University of Georgia also won the prestigious award. In fact, we were the first Southeastern Conference school to receive it, and won in 2000. (I was on the flagline from '97 to '00. Just thought I'd point that out.)