Just went to Picnic Day yesterday and had an absolute blast. I’m not normally a parade kind of guy, but the parade was great (really loved a community … punk marching band? … called Noise Violation), the Doxie Derby, and a number of exhibits / tours / open houses during the day.
The highlight for me was the Battle of the Bands, where pep bands from UCD, UCSD, UCSB, UCB, USF, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly Humboldt, and Stanford “competed”, in a pretty amazing showcase. Essentially, the bands were set up in two facing rows of four bands each, with the audience in the ~30 foot gap between them. The audience would stand in front of the left-most band of one row, watch them perform a song, then collectively shuffle one band to the right, and watch them. When the audience got to the end of the row, they would all turn around and watch the now-left-most band of the opposite row, and so on. (This went on for … apparently … eight hours?) Band members would often hop over to join “competing” bands, and one particular rendition of “Louis Louis”, hosted by Cal Poly Humboldt, probably ended up having 40 different soloists from the various schools stepping in to perform. It was really excellent. (My favorite was UCSD, with CPP behind them.)
If you’ll be heading to Davis in the fall, look forward to Picnic Day next spring. It’s a real treat.