by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
Though attendance at last Friday’s Jacksonville Jaguars game was 50,021, it only took 19 people to make the crowd at Alltel Stadium louder than ever.
D-Line, a 19-piece, 24-member drum line, has been added as a new feature for game day entertainment at the stadium this season.
Andrew Nixon, D-Line’s co-coordinator and member, said he has enjoyed being a part of the group and hopes the band can bring something extra to the Alltel experience.
“We are going to bring a lot of excitement to the games,” said Nixon. “We just want to get the fans pumped up and get the team pumped up. We want to have a major impact on the Jaguars. We want Jacksonville to know who we are.”
So far, Nixon said the fans have been very receptive. Just after the end of Friday’s game, he said the band took its drums down to the parking lot and performed for another hour because the fans “just wanted more and more.”
Nixon said the group is sponsored through a partnership between University of North Florida and the Jaguars.
When plans to create D-Line were finalized in June, Nixon and Michael Patterson, the group’s other coordinator, only had about one month to promote the band and recruit drummers. Nixon said more than 50 people tried out.
Now that D-Line has made its public debut, Nixon said drummers from all around are wanting to join the band.
“We have people ringing phones off the hook and beating down the door to get in (D-Line),” he said.
Nixon said demand for the group has begun to rise because D-Line is the first group of its kind in this area.
“It is a drummer’s dream just to be able to drum and nothing else — no horns, no color guard — just to sit back and drum,” Nixon said.
Besides Jaguars games, Nixon said the group has been open to other performance ideas. For example, they performed at a Shania Twain concert in July.
“What we played was really basic, but it was our very first performance as a drum line,” said Nixon. “It was put together at the last minute and it was a lot of fun.”
Nixon said the group is currently scheduled to perform at UNF basketball games and at another major concert in September.
The Super Bowl and Gator Bowl also may be options for D-Line, but Nixon said nothing is definite for those two events.“We want to make this thing as big as we can make it,” he said. “We will continue to polish and will get better and better.”