Mississippi State marching band plays video game music during halftime show

by Blake Snow { Sep 6th 2006 at 6:30PM }

The above video depicts the Mississippi State marching band performing several video game soundtracks during their home opener last week. Though the Bulldogs lost 15-0 to South Carolina, the Maroon Band will remain winners in the hearts of gamers everywhere (cue fake crying). The halftime show featured music from Halo, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Bros, Super Mario World, Legend of Zelda, and even the unreleased Zelda: Twilight Princess while the Halo emblem, NES controller, and Zelda Triforce were formed on the field.

You stay classy, Starkville.

[Thanks, James]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Sinnen @ Sep 6th 2006 6:46PM

AHHHHH!
Where the hell can I get this music for my high school band? I've ALWAYS wanted to play video game music for marching.

generalformat @ Sep 6th 2006 6:45PM

Damn! That's pretty awesome!

Will @ Sep 6th 2006 6:45PM

Really impressive, now lets see this during the Super Bowl Half Time Show! (Hey Video Games Live could pull it off, and I don't think they would have to worry about Mario having a wardrobe malfunction).

Huzzah!! @ Sep 6th 2006 6:51PM

This band makes me realize how much My college's sucks!!

yay @ Sep 6th 2006 6:49PM

LOL, nice, and thought I was a dork.

bobman2007 @ Sep 6th 2006 6:52PM

That's really cool. I live in Mississippi, and I've always wished our high school band would play video game music at half-time. Now I know that there actually is a band that does this and that this band resides in my own state! Too bad MSU is only second to my first college choice, Digipen. Digipen has had a student from every state besides Mississippi, and that would be awesome if I was the first!

Will @ Sep 6th 2006 6:54PM

That was great, too bad the quality wasn't too good.

idioteraser @ Sep 6th 2006 6:56PM

There are video game music soundtrack CDs for certain games. http://www.amazon.com/Anime-Video-Game-Soundtracks-Music/b?ie=UTF8&node=466578 has over 300 video game and anime soundtracks for you.

Guess you didn't know Stubbs the Zombie had a CD out did you or Final Fantasy X or Resident Evil 2?

Kye @ Sep 6th 2006 6:57PM

I would've been standing with my hand on my heart and tears in my eyes the whole time.

Damned that was awesome.

But since we're all bashing Sony today I think I should kick things off by saying - did anyone notice that NO games that are on the Playstations were played?

;D

Philip Palermo @ Sep 6th 2006 7:00PM

How can you mention the University of South Carolina and not mention their most excellent mascot, the Gamecock...=). I'll let you guess what the abbreviated name is. Anyways, excellent idea and performance... I'd love to see this in person.

Disco @ Sep 6th 2006 7:29PM

Why couldn't we do cool things like this when I was in marching band? Awesome stuff.

Catalyst @ Sep 6th 2006 7:20PM

Where was the Twilight Princess music at? I clearly wouldn't be able to recognize it anyway since the game hasn't been released, but I thought I picked up everything else.

vitaminbmesiter @ Sep 6th 2006 7:21PM

What a joke, glad I don't have to say that is my school. My school has a real band, and fans that fill the stadium, and stand for band, unlike in that video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi0GJxcx7WY&mode=related&search=

Brian Irelan @ Sep 6th 2006 7:30PM

Very cool. I'll be up in Starkville this Saturday with the Auburn band. Can't wait to see this.

josh @ Sep 6th 2006 7:39PM

omg that was the most awesome thing i've ever seen. Normally i hate football but that just gives me a reason to watch the superbowl besides the hotwings. forget the fake tears. when i heard the zelda theme being played i actually started to tear up. that song gets to me everytime.*sniff**sniff*

dsub @ Sep 7th 2006 9:02AM

had my marching band did this in high school I might not have skipped practice so many times and actually put forth an effort to learn the music.

Hamson @ Sep 6th 2006 7:42PM

Halo and Zelda just sounded BA from a marching band.

R.U.Sirius @ Sep 6th 2006 7:51PM

You stay classy, a whale's v*gina!

Thank you, B, thank you! =D

Teri @ Sep 6th 2006 7:57PM

I knew God created Mississippi for a reason. That was actually pretty darned cool. And am I crazy or did they form a Mario Hat using the center field logo about halfway through? Awesome.

R.U.Sirius @ Sep 6th 2006 8:42PM

"10. How can you mention the University of South Carolina and not mention their most excellent mascot, the Gamecock...=). I'll let you guess what the abbreviated name is."

G-Point? =D

Liquid @ Sep 6th 2006 8:19PM

Lets go Gamecocks!!! Pretty kick ass video, but the real action came late in the third quarter with the flea flicker from Syvelle Newton to the running back, Cory Boyd. What a beautiful play! Gotta love that Steve Spurrier offense. After seeing the halftime show I really hate that I didn't make the trip to see the season opener. Any other Gamecocks in the house?

makesevenupyours @ Sep 6th 2006 8:39PM

really impressive, especially the formations.

and though i enjoyed it...the halo theme is just NOT the same without strings...those cellos are AMAZING!!

Konami @ Sep 6th 2006 8:42PM

So, they pretty much just played the same damn songs you've heard covered over and over and over again. Get some new material, people.

Wedge @ Sep 6th 2006 8:47PM

Woot! The Triforce formation at the end was awesome.

n8dogg @ Sep 6th 2006 9:29PM

Meh. The band was alright. I saw a lot of shaky formations and their curves needed a lot of work. But hey, it's early in the season.

Big University marching bands aren't that great, for two reasons.

1: Way too many people. The larger the group is, the more difficult it is to do anything but make a formation and stay there for 16 bars. Boring.

2: Too many unskilled players in the group. Walk-on means you have trumpets who blat out high C's, and some seriously out of tune notes.

If you guys want to see quality marching, go check out DCI competitions. They're absolutely amazing.

GSI @ Sep 6th 2006 10:13PM

Yea I agree with n8dogg...while it was kind of cool to see that, the band itself was "ok."

The opening part for Halo and the closing Zelda were pretty sweet though.

Redbeard @ Sep 6th 2006 10:29PM

Starkville is only a euphemism for hell.

Pyroneil @ Sep 6th 2006 10:36PM

Michigan state university did a show alot like this, I think it was last year.

idiot @ Sep 6th 2006 10:56PM

that's pretty awesome. I'm a student at MSU but unfortunately I'm interning right now in Knoxville. I do have several friends in the band and didn't even tell me about this! Ha, I wonder what their other shows look like. I really hope I get to come to a game this year.

Also, who would have thought you would find a college flame war on a gaming blog? ha

Paul Gale @ Sep 6th 2006 10:55PM

Good job to the school band; that's really cool that played videogame music during halftime. I wish that the games I went to did the same.
Paul Gale
1up.com

Jack @ Sep 6th 2006 11:08PM

woohoo! good to see my college finally get some recognition for something. a friend of mine who was at the game told me about this, wish i coulda been there, MSU rocks!

Paul Gale @ Sep 6th 2006 11:07PM

I watched it again, and man, that really was impressive. I give lots of props to Mississippi State's band for pulling this off. From the NES controller shape to the Zelda Triforce, they were on top of things. And the music really was awesome. I didn't mention it earlier, but man, the Twilight Princess piece was really awesome, as was the Mario and original Zelda pieces. Heck, the Mortal Kombat and Halo tunes were great too; that makes everything sweet!
Paul Gale
1up.com

Jessica Balle @ Sep 6th 2006 11:45PM

Hey guys! I'm a member of that FAMOUS MAROON BAND and aren't we awesome? The band members themselves are some of the biggest fans of this show. A few things about the video: the sound fades in volume during some parts of the song because we face different parts of the field. Just a heads up.