While the Geneseo and Metamora football teams battled on the gridiron for the Class 4A state football title, a battle of a different type took place at halftime.The marching bands from the two schools squared off at mid-field for a light-hearted “battle of the bands.”

“I grew up in Metamora and graduated from Metamora,” said Geneseo band director Steve Scherer. “One of their current directors (Dr. Wally Parks) was the percussion instructor when I was a student there.”

Geneseo’s assistant band director Tony Hernandez and Metamora associate director of bands and instrumental music band director Christopher Render also attended college together at Illinois State University.

“We’ve always had a very good communication with the Metamora band. We go to their marching competition every year, and they come to ours,” said Scherer. “I knew that this halftime offered the potential to do something fun.”

On the Monday prior to the state final, Scherer called the Metamora directors. “I said, ‘I wouldn’t propose this to any other school in the state, but have you seen the end of the movie ‘Drumline’ where they have a drum battle?’ They were into it right away.”

“Steve and I were both thinking the same thing, he was just the one who said it out loud,” said Metamora’s Render. “When we found out our teams would be playing each other, we knew we had to come up with something we could do together.”

As the Metamora band performed on the field at the University of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium, the Geneseo band marched onto the field under the guise of interrupting the Marching Redbirds.

Led by their respective drumlines, the two bands met near the 50-yard line. Geneseo senior drum captain Alex Stevens then stepped forward and played on his quad drums a musical challenge to the Metamora band.

Metamora senior and drumline co-captain Craig Rude responded to Stevens with his own quad performance.

The pair battled back-and-forth before being joined by their own drumlines and eventually the entirety of both bands.

The bands then marched off the field and performed together near the end zone.

“Though we unofficially call it a ‘battle,’ it was meant as a performance, the entire thing was planned,” said Render.

Each band practiced their own role in the week leading up to the state game, and, on the day of the title game, snuck off together to practice.

“I’ve been to the University of Illinois stadium many times, and the confined performance area, with walls of fans on both sides, really lends itself to a performance like that,” said Scherer. 

“The kids wound up really playing it up. They performed very well, and the response from the audience was amazing,” he said.

“When we told our students about it, they loved it. They thought it was going to be awesome. We’re fans of big performances for the audience, and we like to get the crowd involved,” said Render.

With their football teams off the field, the fans transferred their cheering to the bands.

“The response we got from the audience was completely unexpected,” said Scherer.

“This was the third year in a row we’ve been to the state game, and halftime this year was the most fun,” said Render. “It was a group effort on the part of both bands. I expected a good crowd reaction, but not to that degree.”

And the positive reaction has continued. “We’ve received very enthusiastic feedback,” said
Scherer. “It tells us something about how people do respond to good old fashioned entertainment.”

Metamora fan John Kamm was one of those who enjoyed the show. Kamm posted a glowing review of the halftime performance on the Peoria Journal Star’s football forum.

“Those who know me can attest that music is more my wife’s bag, and I’m not ordinarily one to pay attention to the bands at halftime. What I saw at Memorial Stadium Friday night was one of the best shows ever,” he wrote.

Kamm, who described the performance in his post, said he gave “a major thumbs up to the band directors from Metamora and Geneseo” and called the show “Hands down the best halftime entertainment ever.”

Video from the performance has been posted to the Web site You Tube, and directors from both schools said they’ve received e-mails and comments from members of the public regarding the performance.

“I got an e-mail from the Metamora coach (Pat Ryan). We were close friends growing up, and in his e-mail he said all anyone was talking about was how cool the halftime show was,” said Scherer.

“Community members have stopped the kids and myself around town to tell us how exciting and surprising the show was,” said Render. “I think they really dug it, and all of the comments have been great.”

“The two towns match up in so many ways. They’re passionate about sports, particularly football, and they have long traditions in their music programs,” said Scherer.

“As soon as they were done performing in the end zone, the kids turned to each other and started talking to their counterparts from the other school. We had to really pull them apart to get them back into the stands for the second half,” he said.

“I preach to my students to take time to get to know students in other bands, and this was a way for them to get to know another band,” said Render.

“We’ve had a lot of good experiences with the Metamora band over the years, but this was the best. It was a lot of fun,” said Scherer.