There will be tears shed on this day, by grown men and women alike, not of sadness nor of defeat, but of the kind very hard to put into words.

Joyful noise

Turning the corner onto University Drive in Amherst on a brisk and golden Saturday on Oct. 26, it felt like it used to feel on Game Day, a big crowd decked in home colors, there to make some noise.

But a good part of this crowd, noisemakers all, are not there exclusively for the Minutemens’ showdown with the Wagner College Seahawks.

You can hear the vaunted UMass Marching Band in the distance, out on the lawn behind McGuirk Stadium, but look, there are horn sections everywhere, in the parking lots, under the trees, on the buses, a pod of clarinetists on the sidewalk, dozens of drummers keeping time with the big band yonder. And hometown colors? Child, you don’t know colors. The plumage alone.

This is Band Day, a 40-year tradition, where high school marching bands come from all over New England to play and march with their hosts at halftime. They learn the music, rehearse on-field with Band Director Timothy Todd Anderson and his crew of drum majors in the morning, hang out with the band, eat lunch, and be in formation by 2:30, marching en masse to their place in the stands. Forty bands, from Pembroke to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Ichabod Crane, New York, all splendidly attired, taking up four entire sections.

“It’s a celebration,” says Anderson. “It’s football, cheerleaders, dancers and a big, big band on a beautiful New England afternoon.”

Will all this fanfare be enough to pull a struggling 1-6 team up?

“We hope to provide a little of that homefield advantage,” he winks, “just to help raise the spirits and give the place a little pizzazz.”

Of his carnival barker getup of straw boater, bowtie and saddle shoes, “I’ll be easy to spot,” smiles Anderson. This will come in handy at halftime, when the bandleader will conduct all those bands from high up in Section 8.

Anderson started band life as a teenage tuba player. “I was a struggling trombone player and they needed a tuba,” he laughs.

Hype it up

When Band Day was launched in the 1980s, only three high schools took part, one of them being Northampton High. Last year, baritone saxophonist Alma Rondina of Northampton played Band Day as a high school senior. This year she’s on that same field as a UMass freshman.

“I love this job,” laughs Rondina, who got to help her old mates at Hamp High as official bus greeter. “I escort them around, basically tell them to get out there and hype it up.”

She’s gotten used to the spectacle. Her first Band Day was in seventh grade. “Everyone knows the UMass Marching Band … but to be part of this, to have so many people here who come out for us … it’s unbelievable!”

The baritone sax is a work in progress. “I was playing tenor sax,” she said. “I was really rooting for them to start a baritone section but there was some apprehension. The weight of it — it’s not typically an outdoor instrument,” she laughs, “but we’re working it out.”

Of the college experience: “People here take care of each other. I spend time with my band friends, always working together to hype up our performances.”

Hype up?

“Yeah, that’s a term we use a lot in band,” she laughs.

The music major is a classically trained pianist who loves jazz and reveres the late bassist Charles Mingus.

At 15 minutes to kickoff her band, some 380 strong, charges the field in high blaring octane, its legendary drumline dead center at the 50. Then the horns kick in, a synchronic explosion, and the UMass Fight Song seizes the day.

Seen wiping away a tear is NEPM’s Monte Belmonte, there with son Pax. “Gets me every time,” he says. “It’s something about the power, like a wave of sound that just hits you.”

“Wait till halftime,” predicts Annemarie Flaherty, (the columnist’s wife). “You’re gonna be a puddle,” adding, “I’ll be the puddle next to you.”

Monte banged the big bass drum all through his years at Norton High. “Every year we came out for Band Day, the only time I came to western Mass ever. I thought it was a desolate wasteland. I loved Band Day, loved the UMass Marching Band, but when my wife was going to get her master’s at UMass I said forget it, there’s nothing out there,” he laughs.

Monte played football freshman year at ol’ Norton, then jumped in with the band at halftime, “with my pads on and everything. I think I was trying to bring the nerds and jocks together.”

Go U! Go UMass!

Being Band Day, Anderson fittingly gets to flip the coin at midfield. UMass wins the toss. Check.

Though quarterback Taison Phommachanh throws an interception on the first play from scrimmage, speedster T.Y. Harding grabs a screen pass for a touchdown, Te’Rai Powell snags a thrilling interception of his own and the Minutemen and their band are in sync from that moment on.

The fight song, belted out every time the guys do something great, gets a workout today, but the band seems more excited with each one. Check.

WRSI morning man Steve Sanderson served as chaperone for the Northampton High squad. His daughter Hazel is a first-year trumpeter.

“When they rehearsed this morning, 30 or 40 marching bands — they were already fantastic the first time and they weren’t even in their uniforms yet. I’ve already cried once; I can’t wait to see it!”

Halftime

The UMass Band flies into formation, setting the stage for all those high school bands to march down from the stands and blast into a rip-roaring rendition of “The Saints Go Marching In” with over 3,000 young people on the field. Seventy-six trombones? There has to be that many tubas, producing what you imagined an ocean of whales would sound like before they came out with all those recordings. Not a blade of artificial grass can be seen from the stands. The effect is stirring.

“So many people expressing themselves, so powerful,” smiles Annemarie, wiping away tears. “Talk about raising your vibration.”

The musicians march out, the Minutemen retake the field, all of it timed to the second, and swarms of teenagers head for the concessions.

“I honestly thought it was great,” says Mason Grassette of Palmer High. “I’m on the quads (drums); we all had a great time.”

Of the UMass drumline: “I wanna be on it!” he says.

“I’ve wanted to come here since fifth grade!” shouts clarinetist Sara Huntsman of Saugus High. “So awesome.”

Finale

UMass tuba player Tim Daigle of Easton thought it was “really cool to be part of something like that, to show the little kids what it’s like.” Mentoring? “Well, as much as you can do in a single day,” he laughs.

Of the tuba: “I already played trombone but they needed a tuba player for my high school band.” (Why does that sound familiar?) “I signed up and never looked back. You need lots of air to begin with, secondarily maybe some notes,” he advises.

When informed that the columnist has a newborn granddaughter being raised in his neck of the woods, he says, “They have amazing schools, amazing music programs, just a great place to grow up.”

Daigle also laid to rest any doubts about marching bands — are they really keyed into the game or are they just blowing notes by rote?

“Omigod, we love football here!” he yells, running to the top of the stairs to rejoin his 16-member tuba section, just as T.Y. Harding returns a punt for his second TD of the game. Can anyone recall a giddier bunch of football players? Final score: 35-7.

But the grand finale is yet to come.

As many head for the exits, the field is cleared, the faux-tuxedoed percussion section muscles its fleet of vibraphones into position and what Alma Rondina calls “the best part of the show” begins.

The band launches into a fiery medley of Queen B (Beyonce), Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” and Max Roach’s “Ghost Dance,” as the horns come closer and closer to the rapt audience, a booming heartful of sound.

A standing ovation from the hundreds who stayed, not just the regulars, but a few high school bands as well.

But Rick Record of Easthampton, there with daughter Jane, is decidedly a post-game regular. “I love it. I come to all these football games but this is what I live for,” he says. “That percussion, you can’t beat it.”

“Band Day always brings him great joy,” says Jane Record.

“Sometimes when the team’s getting shellacked, we say ‘Put the band in!’” he laughs.

The Power and Class, meanwhile, is set to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade next month. “Not our first rodeo, but tons of fun,” said Timothy Todd Anderson.

Bob Flaherty, a longtime author, radio personality and former Gazette writer and columnist, writes a monthly column called “Chance Encounters” in which he writes about our neighbors going about their daily lives.