Let it Go, This T(uba) Shall Pass
September 25, 2013 8:31 AM   Subscribe

The 2008 USC-Notre Dame football game at the LA Coliseum was not a great one for the Fighting Irish. They lost to USC 38-3, en route to a disappointing 6-6 record for the season. Notre Dame had only 4 first downs and 91 total yards on offense (!!!). But the game turned out to be a fateful one for the Band of the Fighting Irish, Notre Dame's 167 year-old marching band. Playing a triumphant show at USC for the first time ever, the band did a medley that included the OK Go song "Here it Goes Again," which became famous when the very fun low-budget video of the rock band's members performing on treadmills went viral. The Notre Dame band's performance that day included the marching band making two gigantic treadmills on the field, and band members reenacting some of the video's moves. Little did they know that this would lead to their star turn in a music video.

OK Go saw the performance by the marching band - whether live or later is not clear - and had an idea. They contacted Notre Dame's Assistant Band Director in the spring (that link tells the whole story) and floated the idea of doing a video with the band. So over the school's fall break in 2009, participating members of the marching band spent the week rehearsing, recording, and shooting the video for a special version of OK Go's song This Too Shall Pass. The video was shot in one take, on the Notre Dame campus. It was released by OK Go in early January, 2010, and has been a huge hit. It currently has 8.7 million views on YouTube.

OK Go has since returned to Notre Dame to play shows on various tours. During the Pitt game in 2010, the band came back and joined the marching band on the field in a brilliantly-executed live performance of This Too Shall Pass at halftime.

Amazingly, that video is only the second-best one for the song. A few months after releasing the marching band version, OK Go put out an even more ambitious Rube Goldberg-inspired video for the song, which is brilliant and which has nearly 41 million views.

This Too Shall Pass Previously (on the Rube-Goldberg video, with some discussion of the marching band version). And OK Go previously: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
posted by AgentRocket (6 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
These videos always make me happy. I really needed happy-making videos today.

Thank you!
posted by ocherdraco at 9:02 AM on September 25, 2013


Also, I can't believe it's been three years since "This Too Shall Pass" and five years since "Here It Goes Again." Yowza.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:14 AM on September 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


These videos always make me happy.

Same here. Except I always start crying.

As I've said before, fun, funny people doing fun, funny things are the best.
posted by elmer benson at 12:20 PM on September 25, 2013


These are great! The "brilliantly executed live performance" link is also a good demonstration of the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound.
posted by Secretariat at 6:00 PM on September 25, 2013


Happy happy thank you! We painted our kitchen a late-summer yellow today, and this music is that color for me . . . ~thanks~
posted by pt68 at 7:42 PM on September 25, 2013


I think you missed a previously for Needing/Getting.

Personally I was pretty disappointed by the second This Too Shall Pass video because the marching one was already fantastic and doing a second one for the same song made it seem like they were, I dunno, embarrassed about it. It just seems a waste to not do it on one of the other songs on the album. That said, the marching band video and their Tiny Desk concert are some of my favorite music videos of the last few years. And their go at the muppets theme was really charming. And-
posted by sandswipe at 9:11 PM on September 25, 2013


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