Fiasco

[Jeff Ream]

It was RAIN.

It wasn't acid falling from the sky, or large falling rocks. There was no danger to anyone performing or in the audience. It wasn't even all that windy. The conditions were less than idea, sure....but they weren't so bad that DCA should have cancelled or postponed the most important show of the year.

Thankfully, the vast majority of performers just took the conditions as an opportunity to succeed.

with Paul, earlier, the wind was nasty as ####.

[Scerpella]

im soo surprised these people that dont have a clue didnt mention that maybe DCA finals could be moved back till monday..LOL

that wouldnt mess up about oh a couple of thousands peoples travels..hehe

So youre going to criticize people for stupid views they didnt express? Sheesh.

[loud_lancer]

Okay, maybe I'm just a bit dense, but I still don't understand what World Gone Mad and DrumCorpsMom are complaining about.

Are they upset that they were nice and dry while the corps were performing in driving rain & wind? Or that DrumCorpsMom's daughter was sitting in the rain (probably in a nice raincoat) while watching corps get soaking wet? (Kudos to the daughter & friends -- we appreciated every person in the audience!)

Or are they trying to speak for us corps members, who so far, haven't complained about the mean DCA people & corps staff for making us march in the rain. If so, thanks but no thanks. We're adults and can speak for ourselves.

[SaraNYC]

Okay, maybe I'm just a bit dense, but I still don't understand what World Gone Mad and DrumCorpsMom are complaining about.

Are they upset that they were nice and dry while the corps were performing in driving rain & wind? Or that DrumCorpsMom's daughter was sitting in the rain (probably in a nice raincoat) while watching corps get soaking wet? (Kudos to the daughter & friends -- we appreciated every person in the audience!)

Or are they trying to speak for us corps members, who so far, haven't complained about the mean DCA people & corps staff for making us march in the rain. If so, thanks but no thanks. We're adults and can speak for ourselves.

LOL!!!!

OK, now I know who this is. Hey, thanks BTW for waiting around for me to find my keys before finals. Nothing like a little "lost key" drama to shake things up, eh?

Wow - I never thought anyone was being mean Saturday - crazy, yes - especially when I realized our awesome staff was out there walking around with electronics covered up with flimsy plastic to try to protect it so that we could get what little practice we could fit in. Thanks folks!!!

[zarblap]

I sat through the whole prelims shaking uncontrollably after the first hour,sucking coffee all day.I loved every minute of it!!!!! It shows a corps true colors to prefrom well in those conditions....congrats to all who preformed!!!!!!!!

Edited September 11, 2006 by zarblap

[JohnZ]

I think someone probably heard a Fire Siren somewhere and thought it was a tornado siren. We don't have tornado sirens. (though there was actually a tornado about 1 mile from where I now live outside of Buffalo this summer...)

Actually Danielle, if a community still uses fire sirens, they serve double duty as community warning sirens under the old Civil Defense System, though it sounds likely that there was no connection between the sirens and any weather event.

oscillating tone = fire alert

long tone = take cover

short tone = all clear

I can't speak for any of the other performers out there on Saturday, but when I hit the field I didn't concentrate on the conditions, I focused on the performance. And I had one of the best ######## performances I've ever had. Before and after the field certainly sucked, but the middle was one to tell the kids about!

[84BDsop]

The day of prelims it was raining incredibly hard and non-stop. The temperature was 56 degrees and there was a tornado warning in place. Hardly anyone was in the stands. The corps "warmed-up" in these conditions for hours, then went out and played their shows.

And your point is?? We ALL suffered from teh conditions...some more than others (Alliance, you have my sympathies)...we sucked it up and performed. No one in Dream held back for the scattered folks in the audience. ####, it looked like the size crowd we're USED to performing for! And the corps from Sunny SoCal still took brass in the worst weather i have ever performed in.

You sould like you're blaming DCA for the weather....the contract was signed a year ago. Exactly HOW would you propose DCA deal with a cancellation or moving the shows forward a date? Let's hear your solutions to the resulting logistical problems...not only for DCA itself, but for the performers re travel and returning to work...some of us had a long ### trip home, y'know.

Ahh, drum-corps machismo. Gotta play in the worst conditions. Have to put up with abusive, arrogant instructors. Must continue to play for short-sighted promoters that would be run out of any legitimate entertainment company. Hmm.

I didn't go 3000 miles to pull out. Yeah I was wet and cold, my valves were sterting to gum up, I spent much of the show working the spit valves, and I didn't exactly play my solo well because my lips were numbing up...the rest of the corps was in the same boat. We complained about the cold, but we still went on.

It was up to DCA to either postpone the show until conditions improved (the next morning) or move the competition inside for standstill. They did neither, even though there was at least one week advance notice of this storm.

And does your crystal ball have a list of venues that could be gained on such short notice for an indoor gig? What about arranging parking for ALL the corps full gear? I'll revisit the logistical question from earlier....

Any other show or sporting event short of the NFL would have cancelled/postponed/adjusted the show or the venue. It's an issue of professionalism and common sense, the kind you get at the higher levels of show business. Of course I, always the professional, spent the show inside of my heated truck and played "Go Fish" with my kid. We had a swell time.

And so you #####, ####, and moan while you were dry and everyone else was soaking wet? Funny....haven't heard complaints on this board like yours from folks who actually were IN the weather.

Do I seem bitter?

Yeah....and offering no solutions -- just #####ing -- makes your arguments about a long-lived as the field lines Saturday.

[bradrick]

For the record, no part of western New York, or anywhere within 60-90 miles of Rochester on that Saturday, was under either a tornado warning or severe thunderstorm warning at any time on Saturday. I heard a rumor of a tornado warning before leaving the hotel and immediately called my friend Tim, a certified meteorologist. There were no warnings of any kind of that nature.

Be that as it may, wow, the weather sure did stink. But it was rain and wind gusts, no lightning, no tornadoes.

Just to make sure all the information is out there:

When Frontier was told the show was being delayed, and that our performance time was going to be moved back at least 20 minutes (it ended up being longer than that) - this was communicated to us by a DCA guy with a clipboard who said it was because they'd cleared the stadium due to a "tornado warning".

Don't know where the DCA guy got this info, but that's what was said to us as we were standing out warming up in the rain (blowing sideways btw). That's probably why people are using the term "tornado warning" in regards to last Saturday's events.

------

Now that being said, my aussie is off BIG TIME to anybody who took the field on Saturday and defied the weather. It was far from ideal and one of those character building moments that we'll all talk about for years to come.

I think after last Saturday, we can all look at each other and believe that we are ALL bonded together by how insane we all are for Drum Corps. Given those circumstances, we still all went out there and cranked one out.

Edited September 11, 2006 by bradrick

[Brigscontrachik05]

Suck it up.

That's my favorite answer. I use it all the time. heh

I sure was happy not to be performing that Saturday, all warm in my hotel room, but I performed many times under bad weather conditions. Please. It was rain and wind. Boofreakinhoo. Suck it up.

:P

[Dvldawg411]

That's my favorite answer. I use it all the time. heh

I sure was happy not to be performing that Saturday, all warm in my hotel room, but I performed many times under bad weather conditions. Please. It was rain and wind. Boofreakinhoo. Suck it up.

:P

That was our (Brigs mellophones) mantra for the whole weekend - and precisely what we said to each other immediately before starting both the Prelims and Finals shows!

Without moments like these, what the heck else would we talk about 20 years from now!

As Chris Calhoun would say, we were just happy that other people were able to be warm and dry in places other than Paetec Park! lol!