Montana State band relishes chance to play in Music City | Montana State University
Owen Ashcraft’s musical journey started in the fifth grade at Bozeman’s Meadowlark Elementary, where he would jam on the alto saxophone in the band room before school started.
Over time he picked up more and more instruments, to the point that throughout his time at Gallatin High, Ashcraft was the easily recognizable “band kid,” he said.
Ashcraft performed at football games in the fall and served as the call-and-response leader during basketball season, trying to distract opposing teams. He said he was “the loudest always” and would encourage the rest of the student section to dance crazily.
All of that experience serves him well as a member of the Spirit of the West marching band at Montana State, where he is now a freshman. This week, Ashcraft and his bandmates are preparing for the grandest stage of their lives.
The No. 2-seeded MSU football team will play against unseeded Illinois State at 5:30 p.m. (MT) Monday in the FCS National Championship game in Nashville, Tennessee, and the school’s beloved marching band will be playing in the stands — just as it does during home games at Bobcat Stadium.
Getting to perform at a game with such high stakes, and in Music City, no less, is a thrilling opportunity, Ashcraft and other members of the band said. They want to cheer the Bobcats to victory and impress the Nashville audience with their sound, all while reveling in their chance to explore the vibrant music scene.
“I try to be the loudest, most-hyped person of the band and kind of try to spread that as much as I can,” Ashcraft said, adding that he will break out “as many dance moves as I can cram in there.”
‘200 times more complicated’
The Spirit of the West band exceeded 200 members this fall, a longtime benchmark goal for Nathan Stark, MSU’s director of bands, who is in his 15th year at the school.
Stark said this week that 197 members will travel to Nashville, and managing the logistics of a traveling party that large have consumed much of his time since the Bobcats earned their berth in the title game by beating rival Montana in the semifinals on Dec. 20.
“Stuff you think is sort of simple when you travel is suddenly 200 times more complicated,” Stark said.
The first order of business was determining where each of the band members would be arriving in Nashville from. Most returned to Bozeman early in their winter break to take the band’s charter flight on Saturday, but some musicians planned to fly to Nashville from their home cities.
In every case, instruments and uniforms needed to be accounted for. Drew Burkenpas, a former band member, volunteered to leave New Year’s Day and tow the band’s trailer the roughly 1,700 miles to Nashville, transporting large instruments and equipment as well as a number of the band’s bulky hats, called a Shako.
Once he had a headcount, Stark needed to find lodging that could accommodate the band. He found a pair of Holiday Inns that the band will split between, adding that hotels with breakfast help save time and money when the band travels en masse.
Lunches are being arranged with area delis, and the band will be moved around by four charter buses, Stark said.
Stark worked with campus personnel in the past two weeks to gain residence and dining hall access for his musicians who needed it for a few days during winter break when they are traditionally closed. The extent to which “the whole campus comes alive over the holidays to support the band is extraordinary,” Stark said.
“It’s so heartwarming to be wanted as the band,” Melissa Robinson, a recent graduate with a photography degree who plays the baritone saxophone, added regarding the campus accommodations.
Stark said there will be no new or special music or choreography to perform in Nashville. The full band hasn’t rehearsed all together since November — each of the home playoff games had a band of a different size based on which students were available — and Stark didn’t want to pressure the musicians to memorize anything over their winter break.
“We have to balance learning new material against the amount of time that we have to do it,” Stark said. “So we’re going to go in with the absolute best stuff that we know and focus on being the biggest, most-excited group of Bobcats down there.”
An honor and a thrill
Among the reasons Spirit of the West members are excited for the trip is the music history Nashville offers. During the open portions of their packed schedule, they plan to soak it in.
“I’m a big jazz guy, so I’ve done a lot of research on how jazz has moved around the U.S.,” said Ashcraft, who plays the baritone saxophone and is double majoring in music and music technology. “And Nashville’s played a big part in growing jazz music.”
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is also a wish-list item for the trip, Ashcraft and Robinson said. Further, the Broadway area is a famed stretch of live music venues.
“I have heard downtown Nashville is full of people who are all qualified to be there, playing in bars, upstart country singers and singers in general,” said junior business management major and baritone saxophone player Ava Arrowsmith. “We’re super happy to see what’s down there.”
Montana State’s Spirit of the West band marches off the field during an FCS semifinal game against Montana Dec. 20 at Bobcat Stadium.
Shawn Raecke/For the Chronicle
Stark said part of Monday morning would be dedicated to getting a group of students, especially those studying music technology, tours of some of the studios in town.
“Being a musical ensemble,” Stark said, “we want to get the students exposed to as much of this as possible.”
One of five music captains for the band, Arrowsmith is responsible for helping each member learn the music early in the year and giving tips on how it is to be played. In the last two weeks, she’s done much of the organizing of instruments making the trip south. Ashcraft and Robinson, meanwhile, have taken the lead on repairing and otherwise preparing the uniforms for the whole band.
It has been exhausting work in a short timeframe, but the musicians suspect it will be worth it.
“I have never been to Nashville, and even though we’re not going for fun, we’re going for work,” Arrowsmith said, “I’m super excited to really see the city and then also support our team down there.”
In addition to musical ability, school spirit is a must for band members. But sports fandom or football knowledge varies.
“I know the rules, and I know what looks exciting,” Ashcraft said, laughing. “I want us to win. That’s about as much as I got.”
Robinson, who is from Evanston, Wyoming, put it more simply for herself: “I’m a huge fan. I don’t know the rules.”
Arrowsmith, who is from Laurel, said playing in bands through middle and high school pushed her to become a sports fan.
“You get the opportunity to really see the sport for what it is, and see the effort that the athletes are putting into it,” she said.
Also members of the smaller pep band, Arrowsmith and Robinson have traveled to support the Montana State basketball teams at the Big Sky Conference Tournament in Boise, Idaho, each of the past few years, as well as at the NCAA Tournament trips that followed. They have found it meaningful to represent Montana State at those events.
“It’s honestly kind of an honor, as well as a thrill,” Arrowsmith said. “Not a lot of schools really have the means to send their bands down to these things, and so it’s super fun to go because we are basically the student section down there.”
‘Knock the socks off of the fans’
The Spirit of the West will have just one opportunity to rehearse in Nashville, for a few hours Sunday morning in a venue arranged by the NCAA on the Vanderbilt University campus. Part of that rehearsal time will be shared with the Illinois State band — the Big Red Marching Machine — as the groups will play the Star-Spangled Banner and another tune together on the field before the game Monday.
Part of Stark’s week has been working to determine how his nearly 200 musicians will mesh with ISU’s 300-person band.
“There’s going to be 500 college musicians on the field pregame, which is just fantastic,” Stark said. “It’s the sort of stuff that band directors dream about.”
Stark lamented that the band will be seated on the same side of the field as Montana State’s fans during the game, which means Illinois State’s fans on the opposite side will likely hear his musicians better than the Bobcat fans.
Another detail the band is taking into consideration: The capacity at Vanderbilt’s FirstBank Stadium is 35,000, making it the largest venue the Spirit of the West has performed in during Stark’s tenure. It presents a challenge, Stark said, because “you’ve got to divide that sound (of 197 musicians) into the number of people listening, and it’s just a lot harder to be heard.”
Montana State’s Spirit of the West band performs during an FCS semifinal game against Montana on Dec. 20 at Bobcat Stadium.
Dan Chesnet/Belgrade News
Each of the bands will have six minutes during halftime to perform on the field. Ashcraft said the bigger crowd means he and his bandmates will have to be “that much more present and push out that much more sound and energy.”
Robinson said the band’s goal is to “knock the socks off of the fans with our particular style of music” no matter the crowd size. And on a stage such as this, she’s hopeful all those sets of ears recognize the value of the band.
“A lot of people around campus say that the band brings such a unique feeling to all of the games,” Robinson said. “And I want the nation to see that the band is an important thing.”
Added Arrowsmith: “I really hope they realize how much work we put in, and how happy we are to be there. We’ve practiced all season for this.”
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