{"id":177813,"date":"2026-02-14T10:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T10:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/177813\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T10:05:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T10:05:19","slug":"sjsu-musicians-on-display-during-super-bowl-festivities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/177813\/","title":{"rendered":"SJSU Musicians on Display During Super Bowl Festivities"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Super Bowl may be over, there are some San Jos\u00e9 State students still reliving the excitement of the past week. Members of the San Jos\u00e9 State marching and pep bands were invited to perform in two major events in the lead-up to Sunday\u2019s football game: Shaq\u2019s Fun House<\/a>, a part-circus, part-carnival, part-festival experience held on Friday, February 6; and Guy Fieri\u2019s Flavortown Tailgate<\/a>, a foodie extravaganza held on Sunday, February 8. Both events were hosted by Medium Rare Live, LLC<\/a>, and took place at the Cow Palace in Daly City.<\/p>\n

Keira Lieb, \u201927 Music Education, and Vinayak Sharath, \u201926 MS Mechanical Engineering, were among the 20 Spartan musicians selected to perform \u2014 Lieb at the Fun House event and Sharath at the tailgate. Both Spartans play multiple instruments, and though these were not their first gigs played off campus, the energy at each event was distinct. Former professional basketball player Shaquille O\u2019Neal performed as his deejay persona, DJ Diesel.<\/p>\n

Lieb, who plays the clarinet and the mellophone (a large brass horn instrument), describes how the band accompanied circus performers, including jugglers, stilt walkers and unicyclists.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"SJSU<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tSJSU Marching Band performers at Shaq\u2019s Fun House. Photo: Joseph Khalifa, \u201919 Industrial Engineering.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"SJSU<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tKeira Lieb (center) and fellow marching band performers at Shaq\u2019s Fun House. Photo: Joseph Khalifa, \u201919 Industrial Engineering.
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<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest part was performing on stage,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was a big crowd of people, and because we were inside the Cow Palace, we sounded a lot louder than we normally do. In that environment, people were hyped up and really receptive to us. We had a good relationship with the circus performers in such a vibrant environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lieb has played in the SJSU Marching Band and the SJSU Pep Band for four years, and plans to become a band teacher at the high school or collegiate level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI do a mix of pep band, marching band and concert band because I like playing the different levels and genres of music,\u201d she says. \u201cThe differences in music really give me a very diverse learning experience. This will come in handy later on when I\u2019m a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a graduate student, Sharath is newer to the SJSU band program, but has spent many years performing percussion and saxophone. He spent five years playing in the Mustang Band at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as an undergraduate, taking a break only when he moved to San Jos\u00e9 to start his master\u2019s program. After a semester with no music extracurriculars, he realized how much he missed the camaraderie and excitement of playing in bands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am motivated to continue my musical journey, even though it\u2019s not my professional focus, because playing music is how I made all my friends in high school and undergrad,\u201d he says. \u201cThese organizations and events connect us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Super Bowl Sunday, Sharath donned a harness to carry a bass drum and carried two mallets as he and his fellow musicians paraded through the Flavortown Tailgate. A self-described foodie, he was thrilled to perform in such close proximity to Food Network star Guy Fieri, and surrounded by so many different kinds of food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went around to different crowds playing pep tunes like \u2018Crazy Train\u2019 by Ozzy Osborne, as well as \u2018Blow the Whistle,\u2019 a hyphy song very local to the Bay Area,\u201d Sharath says. \u201cIt was so fun. I never thought I\u2019d get an experience like this because I\u2019m almost done with school. I\u2019m really glad I got this collegiate marching experience before I leave [SJSU].\u201d<\/p>\n

All in all, Lieb and Sharath agree: their Super Bowl weekend was a smashing success.<\/p>\n

Learn more about the SJSU Bands.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Super Bowl may be over, there are some San Jos\u00e9 State students still reliving the excitement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[11416,949,330,9522,752,88,90,89,84498,11730,33826,11191,75662],"class_list":["post-177813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-band","tag-football","tag-music","tag-national-football-league","tag-nfl","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-sb60","tag-super-bowl","tag-super-bowl-60","tag-super-bowl-lx","tag-superbowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}