All of Gardner Lounge will become a stage Friday night with the return of Chicago’s Mucca Pazza to Grinnell. The self-described “circus punk marching band” consists of 30 performers who rock out on everything from the accordion to the violin to the sousaphone. Oh, and they bring cheerleaders.

Donned in an impressive variety of marching band uniforms, the members spread themselves throughout the room to create a totally immersive, chaotic, and unique concert experience. A trombone player could sneak up behind you and blast a few notes into your ear, the trumpets could start fighting with the clarinets, or the band could decide to mirror their 2006 performance here by marching around campus, probably in step. The music doesn’t really fit in a genre, but includes folk, punk, and reggae influences. It mostly makes you wonder why more marching bands don’t do this in the first place.

Mucca Pazza is the high school band everyone wishes they were in–you know, if your band director was into drugs and those goody-goody saxophone players were actually crazy. Suddenly, being a band geek isn’t nearly as degrading as it was out on the football field. In fact, it’s kind of cool.