Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This year marked the fifth time my wife and I attended the Indy 500 Festival Parade in downtown Indianapolis. It’s an annual date-day tradition for us — partly to see the floats and high school marching bands, partly for the famous names (even if the rest of the audience loves them more than we do), and partly because I love the sight of a bustling downtown Indianapolis (which needs to happen every single weekend ever).

The next six entries (to be posted over the next few days as quickly as time and attention span permit) represent a fraction of the pics my wife and I snapped.

Part Two: the full rundown on all the marching bands that performed in this year’s parade, who brought us the gift of music and hopefully also brought plenty of water or Gatorade for their long hours spent not-sitting during this bright, burning day. My wife was in high school marching band once, remembers those drawbacks all too well, feels your pain, and appreciates your sacrifice and talents.

Super-special note: if you’re in, or know someone who’s in, one of the following bands and would like to see more photos of them, please let us know. Either leave me a note in the comments section below or use the “Contact MCC!” form located up in the masthead. We’re used to receiving a few such requests every year and we’re more than happy to help out band members and their supporters. Between the two of us, though, we took over 600 photos today. I’m not going into photo overkill mode and cramming all of that into this entry until and unless I know someone besides us is genuinely interested.

Onward! The following marching bands performed at the 2015 Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade (as always, photos are clickable for enlargement and resolution and such):

* The Purdue University All-American Marching Band:

* The Indiana All-Star Band:

* The Olivet High School Marching Band from Olivet, MI:

* The Indianapolis Public Schools All-City Marching Band:

* The 2nd Marine Division Band from Camp Lejeune, NC:

* The Fairfield Marching Pride from Goshen, IN:

* The Centerville Blue Regiment from Centerville, IN:

* The Troopers Drum and Bugle Corps from Casper, WY:

* Not actually a marching band, but this category is closer to fitting: the OneAmerica Walking Flag. I once marched the Indy 500 Festival Parade as a member of their ranks. Great times.

* The Lafayette Jefferson High School Marching Band of Lafayette, IN:

* The New Castle Trojan Marching Band from New Castle, IN:

* The Downingtown High School “Blue and Gold” Marching Band from Exton, PA. (Fun trivia: my family once stayed in an Exton hotel on our 2010 road trip. Good memories.)

* The Valders High School Band from Valders, WI. [UPDATED 5/26/2015, 12:05 a.m.: By request, all our Valders band pics are now online at a separate Flickr album.]

* The George Rogers Clark High School Marching Band from Winchester, KY:

* The Taylor Marching Titans of Kokomo, IN:

* …and the Speedway 500 Regiment from Speedway, IN, home of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway! [UPDATED 5/26/2015, 12:05 a.m.: By request, all our Speedway band pics are now online at a separate Flickr album.]

To be continued! Links to other chapters in this annual MCC miniseries are listed below. Thanks for stopping by, and please feel free to mention these to millions of your closest friends:

Part 1: Drivers!
Part 3: This Year’s Guests
Part 4: Floats and Balloons
Part 5: The Nationalities Council
Part 6: Star Wars and Potpourri

(For fans of Indy 500 Festival Parade history, you can also click the following links for the MCC photo collections for 2012, 2013, and 2014. Enjoy!)