The Iowa State Marching Band and Alumni Band will be entertaining fans during halftime of the football game Saturday with songs based on the theme “Wild, Wild West.”

“We try to integrate the alumni band into what the varsity band is doing that day,” said Marty Province, assistant professor of music and director of the marching band.

Province said planning began in the spring, and the students got together to decide on the theme.

He said the marching band will start off the show with a medley from the “James Bond” movies. Then the alumni band will take over.

“With the passing of Joe Christensen, the alumni band decided they wanted to honor him [at the Homecoming show],” Province said.

“They will spell out ISU, do a short announcement about Christensen and then play “Bells of ISU.”

He said the varsity band will then come back on the field. The combined bands, amounting to around 400-500 people, will stretch the theme to include detectives with the song “Peter Gunn.”

Province said the alumni band members got their music last Friday or this Monday.

The members will practice Saturday at 8 a.m. and run through a drill rehearsal at 9 a.m.

He said the alumni band includes “everybody from last year’s graduates to [students who graduated in the] 1940s … that’s as far back as we go.”

He said normally the alumni band does a marching drill during the program, but because they wanted to do a tribute to Christensen, they had to cut the rest of the program a bit.

“Just from a production and rehearsal standpoint, we had to cut it,” Province said.

He said the band is allocated 15 minutes for its show.

“We’ll probably take 13-and-a-half this year,” he said.

Province said the show also includes an announcement about the Habitat for Humanity project, an introduction of “Cy’s favorite alum” and a game-day sponsor presentation.

“The alumni band will also be inducting an honorary member,” Province said.

“We think every week’s special, [but] there are a lot of things going on this week,” he said.