University of Wisconsin - Extension

A new documentary airing on Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 1, captures the brass, sass and memories of 30 years of UW Varsity Band Spring Concerts. The program encores at 10 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2.

Spring Fever: 30 Years With the UW Varsity Band uses interviews, classic concert footage and lots of behind-the-scenes material to trace the tradition of the annual spring concerts on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, a tradition started when UW Director of Bands Michael Leckrone was hired.

“My first year was 1969,” he says in the program. “The Varsity Band wasn’t even organized. That was one of the charges that I had with the job. It was to put together an organization that would play at basketball games, men’s basketball. That first year, we had 27, 28 people because it was a new thing and nobody knew what direction it was going. Some of us came up with the idea, members of the band, that at the end of the season we ought to have a party, just a band party.”

That party was the first concert, held in Mills Concert Hall with the evening’s selections scratched out on a chalkboard shortly before the performance. Leckrone recalls the students thinking, “‘Nobody’s going to come to a pep band concert.’ Were they ever wrong!”

From these humble beginnings, the concerts have grown into a red-infused three-night presentation replete with pyrotechnics, theatrical sketches, aerial derring-do, high-wattage sequined costumes and, of course, well-arranged, crowd-pleasing music.

Spring Fever is heavy on footage from concerts spanning from 1980 to 2004. Hairstyles and fashions change through the shifting scenes, but the constant is the audience enthusiasm, and renditions of “Varsity” and any number of polkas.

The documentary also looks at the steps leading up to the April performances. Beginning with a grueling, sweaty tryout, viewers see prospective band members wrestling with bulky instruments in complex marching steps, mastering compositions in the August heat of a practice field.

There are glory shots in Camp Randall where band members are as big of a part of the action as the gridiron athletes, and in most cases, just as physically fit.

Leckrone also presides over classroom work, shaping the efforts of the students into what will be another concert. It’s a lot of work, both for Leckrone and for the students.

Yet, the band members revere Leckrone, at times almost sounding a paean to him. Glenn Ware, an alumnus of the 1971 – 75 band, says, “It goes back to Leckrone. Mike Leckrone is the man. He is the one person who is doing the perfect job for the perfect person in the perfect place at the perfect time.”

What comes through, as well, is the close-knit nature of a group of nearly 300 people.

“The band in a lot of ways is like a family unit,” Leckrone says. “I think we work very hard at the band to get that sense of togetherness. If the band does have another strength it’s that we work really hard together to realize that it’s not a person out there, it’s the whole package."

WPT is a service of the Educational Communications Board and the University of Wisconsin-Extension.