The Concord horns lay into the Blood, Sweat & Tears classic “Lucretia MacEvil” at the Indiana State Fair. The crazy costumes and irreverent shows were part of Max Jones’s strategy to teach his students to perform.

‘Lucretia MacEvil’

“AAdilene had been thinking about it all day, but she still turned the wrong way at the end of ‘Gabriel’s Oboe.’ She didn’t see Amanda Bechtel jump down from the drumcart, or hear the crowd applaud the solo. Then she was into the swirl of ‘Lucretia MacEvil,’ stabbing her clarinet toward the ground like a spear, holding it with both hands above her head and jumping sideways. Trying to be crazy and fun. Things she needed to remember hurtled through her brain, some of them too fast to catch. Everyone in the band swarmed together for one last long blast. “Mercy, mercy, mercy!” she yelled, as loud as she could, in her best Southern accent.

And then there was the real roll-off, and she was bringing her clarinet to her lips and marching—seriously now—down the track. She crossed the last white line marked in the dirt just as she played her final notes, and was swept laughing into the stampede. She heard applause and the announcer’s voice: ‘There’s nothing like it, the quiet, unassuming MarchingMinutemen of Concord High School. Always entertaining.’ She couldn’t believe it was over so quickly.”