The 10th annual Honda Battle of the Bands attracted thousands to the Georgia Dome on Saturday to see precision marching and dance moves from eight colleges.
The high-stepping began with a sobering moment of silence for a Florida A&M University marching band member who died Nov. 19 after a brutal hazing incident.
A Florida medical examiner said drum major Robert Champion, a Southwest DeKalb High School graduate, was so severely beaten during a FAMU Marching 100 band trip to Orlando that he died within an hour of being attacked. The Lithonia 26-year-old's death was declared a homicide.
Champion's death and another FAMU hazing case triggered an intense debate and crackdown on hazing on college campuses. The repercussions have been felt at the high schools many marching band members attended.
The FAMU cases allegedly involved marching band students who had attended DeKalb schools, which prompted the DeKalb County School District to suspend band activities in mid-December until two weeks ago.
FAMU clarinetist Bria Hunter, also a Southwest DeKalb graduate, suffered a broken leg in a separate hazing incident. Two of the three FAMU band members who were charged with punching her attended Southwest DeKalb. The third graduated from Druid Hills High School, also in DeKalb.
Absent from among the eight top marching bands at the Dome on Saturday was FAMU's Marching 100, but the issue of hazing was on the minds of some of 60,000 who gathered at the Dome.
“It still makes me frightened,” said freshman Riley Ross, a flutist for KIPP Atlanta Collegiate‘s “Sounds of Royalty” marching band. She was at the Battle of the Bands with other members to learn new moves in hopes of joining Hampton University's band one day.
“If you realize hazing is going on, you have to end it or else it will continue,” Ross said.
The theme for Saturday’s competition was “The Homecoming,” a call to alumni and current students of historically black colleges and universities to support bands and student performers.
Marching bands received $20,000 for their music education programs plus all-expenses-paid trips to Atlanta to perform at the Dome, where they strutted, spun and fell into splits.
The bands included Albany State University’s “Marching Rams Show Band”; Bethune Cookman University’s “Marching Wildcats”; Jackson State University’s “Sonic Boom of the South”; Prairie View A&M University’s “Marching Storm”; South Carolina State University’s “Marching 101”; Tennessee State University’s “Aristocrat of Bands”; Virginia State University’s “Marching Trojan Explosion”; and Winston-Salem State University’s “Red Sea of Sound.”
“We are excited to be celebrating 10 years of the Honda Battle of the Bands as we continue to support the music education programs of our nation’s HBCUs” said Marc Burt, a Honda representative.
KIPP freshman Monica Wright, a dancer in the “Sounds of Royalty,” said her favorite performance was by Tennessee State University. The band marched slowly onto center field with sharp precision and then sprinted. Dancers in front kicked high and gyrated, showing their long limbs and flexibility.
“I really liked their moves,” Wright said.
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