No football? No problem. UAB Marching Blazers start their 2016 season Monday night
The University of Alabama at Birmingham will not see its football team back on the field in real games until fall 2017, but this hasn’t stopped the UAB Marching Blazers band from booking a bunch of gigs for the fall, working hard to put on a new show and nurturing big hopes for the band’s future.
“We have worked really hard to continue our band program so that we will be just as strong – if not stronger – when football returns,” Interim Director of Bands Gene Fambrough said.
The band kicks-off its 2016 season tonight at 7 p.m. when it plays at the UAB Football Green and Gold Game, an intra-squad scrimmage, to be held at BBVA Compass Field, according to a UAB news release.
The remainder of the season will include another Green and Gold Game, the homecoming parade, several exhibition performances at band competitions in Alabama and Georgia and – for some band members – a chance to march in the World Peace Parade in Rome, Italy, on New Year’s Day 2017.
The members of the band are “absolutely excited,” about the Green and Gold games, especially since they “are actual UAB Football events” and will draw “some of the best UAB fans around, Fambrough said.
“That was one thing that was missing last year, the ability to attend and play for a football game [and] it did create a bit of a vacuum for the students, but we are more than ready to get back to it tonight,” Fambrough said.
The Marching Blazers worked several nine- and 12-hour days last week putting in their show for 2016.
“Our show will feature famous music from the movies ‘Back to the Future,’ James Bond, ‘Mission: Impossible,’ ‘Napoleon Dynamite,’ ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Star Trek,’” Fambrough said.
About 50 members of the band will travel to Italy to participate in the World Peace Parade, which is part of the annual World Day of Peace celebrated by The Vatican. Pope Francis has chosen "Nonviolence: A style of politics for peace," as the theme for the event, according to catholicnews.com.
The trip to Rome “is a fantastic opportunity to offer our students the chance for international travel and performance, as well as to perform for crowds that wouldn’t otherwise know anything about UAB,” Fambrough said.
The highlight will be visiting the Vatican and receiving a blessing from the Pope, according to Fambrough.
Excitement is building for 2017, according to Fambrough, “With all of the positive energy going on in the UAB community around the school and the return of football, it will be a very unique time in the history of the university,” he said.
The director wants to recruit heavily for the band, this year.
“I want the band to be the biggest and the best it’s ever been for the return of football,” Fambrough said.
Tickets for tonight’s Green and Gold Game are $5 for adults and $3 for children and are available at the UAB Athletics Ticket Office at Bartow Arena or at the event. A Blazer Fan Fest, to be held at 5 p.m. on the West Campus Athletic Fields, will feature food trucks, inflatables, interactive games and appearances by UAB athletes.
For more information about the Marching Blazers, follow them on Twitter at @MarchingBlazers or go to the UAB Department of Music Facebook page.
UAB Marching Blazers 2016 appearances
Sat., Sept. 24: Exhibition at Daleville (Ala.) High School.
Sat., Oct. 8: Exhibition at Heart of Dixie Band Festival at Prattville (Ala.) High School.
Sat., Oct. 15: Exhibition at Hoover Invitational at the Hoover Met
Thur., Oct. 20: UAB Football Green and Gold Game at BBVA Compass Field, 7 p.m. Details TBA.
Fri,, Oct. 21: UAB Homecoming Parade, noon
Sat., Oct. 29: Exhibition at Lafayette Marching Classic in Fayetteville, Ga.
Sun. Nov. 27: Atlanta Falcons Youth Football League parade, Atlanta. The parade will begin at Centennial Park and end at the Georgia Dome just prior to the Falcons’ game against the Arizona Cardinals.