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Funny Accidents on the Field?


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there are videos of this on youtube

I had to look this up because it sounds like one of those great 'the show goes on once we have the field' moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpjKX3de2l8

While I assume once their eyes adjusted there was more visibility than the camera could capture so they could maintain their intervals, etc. on the drill.

I'm curious how it was scored. How does someone from the box judge visual if they can't see it? Hah!

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Over the past two weekends, I've been out to watch the performances of 122 different marching bands. In one of those shows something happened that suggests a topic for conversation here.

The band in question, Milton Union, from near Dayton in southwest Ohio, performed a show titled "Supernova" that featured music of Holst's The Planets, punctuated at times by recorded samples of Carl Sagan from the original version of Cosmos (I wonder if they were influenced by Minnesota Brass's show, which opened with a clip from the Neil deGrasse Tyson version). Scattered about the field were six large upright round painted placards meant to represent planets, and more or less in the middle of these shapes was a red bundle, about the size of an ottoman. Following the opening number, this object was unfurled to become a round tarp, about twenty feet across. I think this change represented a star exploding, but it's not important; the key point for this discussion are what happened next.

One player stepped to the middle of the tarp circle with a concert French horn for a solo to begin the next segment of the show. After the solo, the player set the horn down on the tarp. About a minute later, the show's drill called for another group of players to cross the tarp ...

And one of them stepped right on the horn. She or he stumbled slightly but didn't fall over and continued on.

Those members of the audience looking at that part of the field either laughed or groaned, but I think the only person in the band who realized what had happened was the stumbler--because about a minute after that, as the song worked to its conclusion, the soloist returned to the horn, had a brief moment of surprise finding the mouthpiece was not on the instrument, picked it up, and then began the solo...

And no sound came out of the horn.

OK, so it was funny in a wince-inducing way. But turning to drum corps: what humorous mishaps have you seen--or been part of--at or in a corps performance? No serious injuries, please: I'm curious about moments that you could laugh at without too much regret.

On a brief band tangent: looking over the BoA Grand Nationals schedule, I see that Milton-Union performed yesterday in prelims, which I think have been streamed, so it might be possible to see this show--presumably without them repeating the accident described above.

Although it would be clever for a corps or band to design a show with a lot of deliberate "accidents".

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I think I've posted this before... Crossmen, San Antonio night show in 2008. In the closer I had a big move, little bigger than a 4 to 5 from a halt. So I'm airborne... right in front of the drumline. Me and the drum judge collided while I was in mid air... I went rolling. Got back up, a little confused as to where I was, gathered my Aussie that fell off a little bit away from me and got back the next set. It was on FN... but I think they recently took off all the non finals week videos... which sucks, because our Allentown run was awesome!.. But that's besides the point.

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On a brief band tangent: looking over the BoA Grand Nationals schedule, I see that Milton-Union performed yesterday in prelims, which I think have been streamed, so it might be possible to see this show--presumably without them repeating the accident described above.

Although it would be clever for a corps or band to design a show with a lot of deliberate "accidents".

Adding for a moment to that tangent: the BoA Semifinalists were just announced, as determined by scores over the past two days of Prelims, and based on how the BoA judges scored three bands that I had seen live multiple times this year on the OMEA circuit, something went terribly wrong. One band that just moved to Semis didn't even earn a Superior rating in OMEA State Finals and had lost late in the season to two others (who did earn Superiors) who didn't move on tonight. All those OMEA results were entirely fair and reasonable, in my estimation. Admittedly I didn't see the past two days' performances, but it is inconceivable to me that this band could have improved so dramatically in relation to both of the other two; it would be as if, say, 2014 Troopers had passed 2014 Cavaliers and Carolina Crown in DCI Prelims after having been 8-10 points behind them five days earlier in Allentown. I've paid minimal attention to BoA before now; based on this result, I have serious doubts about that circuit's judging.

Now, back to the idea of deliberate accidents: I think Velvet Knights might be said to have had such moments, but one that leapt to mind is Blue Devlis "Constantly Risking Absurdity", where the guard begins their windup, as it were, for a high rifle toss, but instead of tossing, just drops the rifles. That one made me chuckle.

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When BOA was MBA there were some suspect moments in judging as well. Bands making the night show finals in the top 5 then getting plonked into 12th place after their large following had bought tickets to the night show when there was no appreciable difference in their performance.

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Adding for a moment to that tangent: the BoA Semifinalists were just announced, as determined by scores over the past two days of Prelims, and based on how the BoA judges scored three bands that I had seen live multiple times this year on the OMEA circuit, something went terribly wrong. One band that just moved to Semis didn't even earn a Superior rating in OMEA State Finals and had lost late in the season to two others (who did earn Superiors) who didn't move on tonight. All those OMEA results were entirely fair and reasonable, in my estimation. Admittedly I didn't see the past two days' performances, but it is inconceivable to me that this band could have improved so dramatically in relation to both of the other two; it would be as if, say, 2014 Troopers had passed 2014 Cavaliers and Carolina Crown in DCI Prelims after having been 8-10 points behind them five days earlier in Allentown. I've paid minimal attention to BoA before now; based on this result, I have serious doubts about that circuit's judging.

Now, back to the idea of deliberate accidents: I think Velvet Knights might be said to have had such moments, but one that leapt to mind is Blue Devlis "Constantly Risking Absurdity", where the guard begins their windup, as it were, for a high rifle toss, but instead of tossing, just drops the rifles. That one made me chuckle.

The differences between OMEA and BOA judging and scoring are quite striking. I've seen solidly Superior OMEA band score a 295 (out of 300) yet not get a I ( 80/100 ) at BOA and some "marginally" Superior OMEA bands ( 240/300) get a 81 at BOA GN.

It's all about show design and maybe a little good old boy system going on.

I agree that VK has had some intentional accidents in their show.

I always thought that there was a sop solo in their '90 show that fracked a bit to mimic the BD '89 frak. Can't be sure though....

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I'm curious how it was scored. How does someone from the box judge visual if they can't see it? Hah!

I think they just said "screw it" and put it down as an exhibition. Pretty cool performance to see on video. Talking to members, they did mostly go with muscle memory, and their eyes did adjust a bit. But there were a bunch of collisions the video doesn't pick up. Amazing a big accident didn't happen. But drum corps members could probably perform their shows blindfolded if you put them in the first set.

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