Ohio State Marching Band Half Time Video Game Show Five Years in the Making

We all have marveled over the Halftime performance of The Ohio State University Marching Band on Oct. 6 against Nebraska. So far, it has gotten over 12.2 million hits on YouTube and could easily be described as the band's best performance yet. But, what does it take to put on such a performance.

According to a Cleveland newspaper, the idea was conceived five years ago and took up to 14 hours of in-field practice with the band's 225 members.

OSU band director Jon Waters told The Plain Dealer that the performance was a "unique coming together of a lot of things at the right time and right place."

"As a band director, when you go into a halftime show when the team is leading, it makes the show better, it really does, because the fans are happy," Obama said. "So we were winning, it was a night game, the band looks great under the lights, it was a national TV game and a very highly touted game, and I think people's emotions were just perfect to react the way they did to our show."

A record audience of 106,102 attended that Saturday's game.

Waters said he was surprised by the great reaction the performance got.

"I thought we'd get a great audience response, but what I didn't expect was the national and international recognition," Water said. "And one of the cool things that made it go viral is that video gamers online have picked up on it. It's just really great."

The band has been dubbed "The Best Damn Band in the Land" for their extravagant half-time performances.

According to the report, band members rehearsed for two days the week before, and then Monday through Friday in the week of Saturday's night game. The sessions lasted about two hours each and band members spent 10 to 15 hours on their own memorizing the music.

"It was a historical journey through video game music," Waters said. "Some of the early music is a little trite, kind of tinny, so we tried to capture that in the musical arrangements. Some of the more modern stuff is very symphonic in nature and translated very well to our band. So we took all that into account and merged the music with the visual presentation we wanted to make."