"Drumline Live' at the Merriam

My teenage son, who plays tuba and Sousaphone, was invited to audition for the excellent marching bands at Penn State, Rutgers and the University of Pittsburgh. Now he proudly marches each weekend at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh and at National Football League games in Buffalo and Toronto. When he and his fellow bandmates strut onto the field, they rhythmically lift their heavy instruments overhead as they high-step.

None of those venues, however, presents anything like the style of Drumline Live, a spectacular theatrical tribute to marching bands. Nor is this show what people see and hear from the highly praised and very popular bands at schools like Michigan and Ohio State.

This particular show, on its fourth U.S. tour, celebrates the type of band music played at historically black, mostly Southern colleges— a pumped-up style in which the musicians dance funky steps as they play, and the drummers compete with each other, providing antiphonal challenge rounds.

The music and dancing here is different, and the audience at the Merriam on opening night was almost entirely black. The crowd didn't need prompting to sing along, and cast and audience enthusiastically shouted back and forth.

The show picks up where the similarly titled film left off, devoting sections to African music, hip-hop, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Michael Jackson as well as gospel (for which the musicians wore church choir robes). A spooky section called Midnight Magic utilized black light and stick figure costumed drummers. Interludes of historical film gave the cast time for all the costume changes.

I spied only one female in the 40-member marching band, although four other women joined the show as singers and dancers. All were intense, powerful and precise in their movements.

This music is surely more dazzling and spectacular than what you'll see at historically white and/or northern colleges. Yet it's a shame that the selections were not more inclusive. The producers say, in the program, that they want to share the American marching band experience with a wide audience. To judge from the Merriam audience, that's not happening.