Their instruments got stuck in El Salvador, but Rice band members still wowed a crowd in Belize

BY ALYSON WARD
Rice News staff

When members of the Rice MOB traveled to Belize last week, they arrived without their instruments — but they went home as national heroes.

Eight members of the Marching Owl Band, accompanied by Director of Bands Chuck Throckmorton, spent nearly four days in Belize at the invitation of Vinai Thummalapally, the U.S. ambassador there. They were scheduled to perform at events celebrating the country’s Independence Day, a major holiday made bigger this year because it’s the 30th anniversary of Belize’s independence from the United Kingdom.

	CHUCK THROCKMORTON
	With a ragtag collection of borrowed instruments, eight MOB members performed Sept. 21 at the national Independence Day celebration in Belize. Besides a national television audience, the band performed for the Belizean prime minister, governor general and leader of the opposition.

The band arrived Sept. 19. Their instruments, which they’d shipped from Houston, didn’t.

The instruments — a sousaphone, two drums, a saxophone, a baritone and a trumpet — had been flown to El Salvador, but they weren’t loaded onto the commuter plane that should have taken them on to Belize. The sousaphone was too big to fit inside the tiny craft, the shipping company said, and no one seemed to be able to locate a truck.

The MOB was left with a couple of clarinets and a schedule full of high-profile gigs. They had a choice: They could either not perform, or they could get their hands on some borrowed instruments.

The musicians got to work.

‘Tuesday morning, I was madly trying to find instruments,’ Throckmorton said.

The ambassador’s wife knew a man in Belize City who had instruments they could borrow. (‘We didn’t know if they were the right instruments, but we knew he had some,’ Throckmorton said.) Then the Rice musicians spent some time with a high school band from Benque Viejo and managed to borrow a tuba.

The instruments weren’t exactly ideal.

‘They were all of interesting age and state of repair,’ Throckmorton said. None of them could stay in tune. In fact, the baritone was even in a different key from the player’s own instrument, which required some frantic last-minute transposing.

And, to make matters worse, the group couldn’t find a working saxophone. Ollie Barthelemy, a Brown College senior and MOB saxophonist, had to play a kazoo instead.

‘I was able to dance more because I didn’t have my saxophone,’ Barthelemy said. But still, he said, ‘we were pretty disappointed in the situation.’

By the time the big Independence Day celebration arrived, the Rice group was feeling pretty low. The musicians feared their motley assortment of instruments — complete with a bass drum that ‘sounded like cardboard’ — was going to be an embarrassment in this critical, nationally televised performance.

But then something happened to put it all into perspective. At the official ceremony — attended by hundreds, including the prime minister, governor general and leader of the opposition – the band was introduced by the master of ceremonies. Throckmorton recalled what happened next:

‘He announced to the people of the country: ‘These people are here from the United States to help us celebrate.’ Then he says, ‘You should know that these are not even their instruments — their instruments are stuck in El Salvador. But these students would not be denied! They borrowed instruments so they could perform for you today. This is the spirit of our country.’

The crowd loved it. The musicians were stunned. This spectacular introduction turned everything around, and suddenly, their performance under not-quite-right conditions wasn’t lackluster, they said; it was valiant and impressive, a triumph against all odds.

‘It made us feel really proud and really accepted,’ Barthelemy said. ‘Of course, it meant the world to us that people understood what we were going through.’

And indeed, the crowd adored the Rice players, kazoo-playing and all.

‘We went from a ragtag group having to play borrowed instruments to national heroes,’ Throckmorton said.

The trip and the performance could have been awful — but they turned out to be, in true MOB style, sort of cool.

‘It all turned out pretty well,’ Barthelemy said. ‘I guess not having the instruments but turning out to be heroes became sort of a blessing.’

By the time the instruments finally arrived, the celebration was over — and the band members had almost ended their tour of Belize. They were able to play their own instruments for a couple of short concerts at elementary schools. It wasn’t much, Throckmorton said — ‘but we had our sound — and oh, it was so great.’