Queen's Bands

Queen's Bands are called "bands," plural, because there are actually six of them:

• pipe band
• brass band
• cheerleaders
• highland dancers
• drum corps
• colour guard

They perform at Queen's football games, appear together or in separate units at major university ceremonies, and represent Queen's at numerous parades and events across Canada and the United States.

The Bands got their start in 1905 when a few first-year students decided to form a marching brass band "to help things along at football games."  After a football loss in 1897, the AMS had looked to rouse student spirits by adopting a school song. "Queen’s College Colours" became the anthem. Then, in 1903, a Toronto publishing house included Colours and other school songs in The Queen’s School Book. But the singing begged for musical backing, so in 1905, twelve male students banded together to form a brass ensemble. It was a ragtag group who had no uniforms and a limited repertoire of songs. John Stirling (BSc 1909), the band’s bass drummer, would decades later become Queen’s Chancellor.

The idea did not gain easy acceptance. The musicians encountered verbal abuse on parades to the football field and were ejected from the equipment room, where they practised, by the football team. So the group dissolved after just two years.

The 1920s brought forth Queen’s first real band: a marching brass band decked out in white duck trousers, tricolour sweaters and tams. The revived band, unlike the original group, had its own instruments. In 1925, a pipe band emerged, giving Queen’s a musical connection with its Gaelic past, but it did not become a permanent fixture until 1938 when the pipers were joined by highland dancers.

It is unclear when cheerleaders first joined the Bands. "Rooters clubs" were formed early this century to lead students in cheers at Queen's games and appear to have gradually become informally, and then formally, linked with the Bands.

Around the time of the Second World War, the Queen's Bands wore the Canadian Army uniform. In the early in the 1940s, the military-style uniforms were replaced by kilts, similar to that of a traditional Scottish Military uniform.

In these same years, the AMS agreed to provide the Bands with an annual subsidy raised by student levy. 

After the Second World War, a constitution was developed that regulated what had become Queen’s Bands six components: the pipe and brass bands, the drum corps, the cheerleaders and majorettes, the highland dancers, and the colour guard. Boo Hoo the bear became a kind of ex officio member. There were annual elections to the Bands’ hierarchy of authority: a manager, a drum major, a pipe major and so on.

Over time, the Bands established themselves as the university’s most recognized ambassador. After Gaels’ victories, the band led impromptu snake dances down Princess Street, and they marched in Grey Cup, Santa Claus, Cotton Bowl and Macy’s Thanksgiving parades across the continent.

In 1991, to celebrate Queen’s 150th anniversary, the Bands undertook an 8,000-kilometre tour of northern Ontario and western Canada. They became adept fundraisers, backed by an active alumni group of former band members.

Learn more about Queen's Bands...