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Little Texas Closes 20th Anniversary Year with a Surprise Show in an Unlikely Venue What do you do when your high school marching band is out of town and your football team is hosting a regional playoff game? Well, if you're in the Nashville suburb of Brentwood, Tennessee, you have country rockers Little Texas fill in as your pep band. That's what happened last Friday night, November 6th, as the hometown Brentwood Bruins hosted the Rossview Hawks in their regional playoff. Just two days before the official end of their 20th Anniversary year, the morning of Nov. 6th brought a flurry of activity to the members of Little Texas, who had originally thought they would be enjoying a rare Friday off at home. While perusing the local Brentwood news, Little Texas guitarist/vocalist Dwayne O'Brien read an article that said Brentwood's award-winning marching band would be out of town at an elite competition that was unfortunately conflicted with the football game. "I couldn't imagine a high school football game - much less a home playoff game - without some kind of a band," O'Brien said, "so I wanted to see if there was anything that I could do." The civic-minded O'Brien was prompted into action and contacted Brentwood principal Kevin Keidel, who quickly gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the idea. "It was such a crazy notion and so last minute that I had no idea if we could pull it off," O'Brien said. "I didn't even know if the other guys were available or not." But a few phone calls later, fellow members Duane Propes, Porter Howell, and Del Gray were on board for the game, and local volunteers quickly pieced together a sound system for the event. The band, clad in blue Brentwood Bruin jerseys, brought out the team with Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" and proceeded to crank out classic rock and roll between plays, taking requests from the student body. An all electric guitar version of the school's fight song rocked the stadium after every touchdown. They also performed a mini concert at halftime which included their hits "Kick a Little," and "God Blessed Texas," which was changed to "God Blessed Brentwood" to the cheers of the home grandstands. "We just wanted to make as much noise as we could to keep the spirit up during the game," O'Brien said. "The cheerleaders did a great job, the crowd was into it, and the team was on fire. It was a great night." Brentwood won 35 to 7. Little Texas will continue their local stadium performance series when they sing the National Anthem at Vanderbilt Stadium as the Commodores host Kentucky on Saturday, November 14th. |