sdstar

Thanks for the review.

Have you voted for your favorite charities yet? Do it now! It would be nice if Blue Stars (LBS Cadets) was on your list, but above all, vote!

It's been announced that if there's rain, the performance will be held in the school gym.

Ensemble 3-5 pm today(the 17th).

There will be, however, a performance at UW La Crosse Stadium at 1030 am on Saturday to kick off the Freedom Ride, and a standstill after the Loggers game (and before the fireworks) Saturday night. Plus, next week on Wednesday the 23rd, the Grand Debut will be held at Onalaska HS Stadium. It's a lot like the Grand Premier in Indy, but it takes place on a football field and includes the guard and the drill. It begins at 7 pm and is free to the public, but the corps requests that people bring a non-perishable food item to donate to the La Crosse Hunger Task Force. 2010 souvies are also supposed to be available there.

Schedule is a bit in the air, but there will be no evening ensemble block.

Blue Stars did not get a grant from Chase last time, but we'd love your vote this time! You'll have to find the Blue Stars under the name "LBS Cadets" to cast a vote. All corps are deserving, but it would be nice if LBS Cadets were on your list!

I believe Thursday is laundry day, so the corps will be gone after 4. I will try to confirm that by tonight.

This will be tomorrow, and IMO, an event worth making some time for.

Sounds like a good plan. I think there will be enough punch but don't have a feeling for how long the cake will last, though. See you there!

Reception at 6 pm, which will include cake and punch, along with a silent auction and 2010 souvies. I suspect warmups will be accessible, but can't guarantee it. At 7, the corps will do a standstill performance of the show, which will include design insights from brass caption head/brass arranger Frank Sullivan. If this is like the previous premier, Frank will talk through the show one movement at a time, then the corps will play the entire show through. I don't like hyping, but this show is unlike any I've seen the Blue Stars do yet... it'll be worth a couple of hours to check it out. Matt... come introduce yourself... I'll be the portly (ahem) fellow with glasses and a green bucket cap. Tim

I wouldn't be surprised if the guard is practicing in a hanger. I've seen AAF [Army Air Force] 1940-something stenciled on some of the structural columns in one of the buildings there (Centennial Hall). The whole facility is in good condition despite being older and as you say has spaces that work very well for rehearsal requirements. Edit: that being said, I did a little searching and found no reference to the military being there after the 1800's. So I dunno.

Just in case you haven't heard the March audio clips, they can be found in the Music Player on the left side of the main Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/bluestars They're worth a good set of speakers, or at least a headset/earbuds.

You've heard the March camp audio clips, and now there's a few more pieces thrown in the mix: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150174054245103 Hurry up June!

That's the one I was thinking of.

you're first with a verifiable answer. The podium is yours.

Ok. I'll give it a shot. I'll stay Blue Stars centric: name one corps and their show that featured the use of a bicycle on the field prior to LeTour in 2008.

Sorry Mike... did I ruin things by using corpsreps on this one? It was a very cool question but it didn't seem like folks were going to get it.

Well, way out of my depth here, but corpsreps narrows it down to the Cambria Cadets, the Mello-Dears, the Southern Rebels, and Velvet Knights. Cambria might not have even been Open Class... not clear from the info there. And further looking reveals the winner to be: Southern Rebels. I defer to another quizmaster for the next question.

I've done some poking around in corpsreps on this subject in the past and again tonight, and it doesn't look like there was any overlap in competition for the two corps. Crown was established in 1990, and although it's not clear to me what their competitive situation was, it looks to me the two corps were not in the same division. In 1991, Blue Stars was in A60 and Crown was in A. In 1992 and 1993, Blue Stars was Div III and Crown was Div II. (In 1993, they were each #1 in their respective divisions.) And then Crown was in Div I in 1994. They may have gone head to head in 1992 in a combined division final, but Crown was higher in the rankings for that one. As far as I can tell, that's the only time they went head to head.

Camp is done, and I could say it was well attended and everyone had fun and that the brass and percussion sound fabulous, but that would be nothing new so I won't bother. (BTW, it would all be true.) The weather cooperated in Indianapolis on Saturday, so the corps was able to get outside and learn the opening sets for the drill... lots of motion, lots of speed, and the kids seemed to be keeping up with it pretty well. I was standing next to an old school VFW/AL marching band competitor (didn't know such a thing existed until he told me) and he summed up his reaction with two words that can't be repeated here without triggering some hash marks... but they signified personal amazement in a very concise fashion. Looking out the kitchen window late Saturday morning revealed the corps doing what looked like basics block in the parking lot while playing parts of the show. They apparently were in the infield of the fairgrounds racing track earlier in the day and were kicked out for scaring the horses. (FWIW, I found those 16th note mello runs at 200 bpm a bit intimidating myself, so I can only imagine how the horses felt ) The corps was able to get back to the infield in the afternoon (see previous paragraph) and were able to get the dotbooks out so all was not lost. In a behind-the-scenes note, the corps has been growing over the past few years and has been bursting the seams of the equipment trailer, but some of the volunteers started tackling a reconfiguration job this weekend, and the space challenges look well on their way to being solved. The guys involved seemed to be happy to have an excuse to get out of the kitchen... it was a real "Tool Time" moment for them. It's hard waiting for the summer to come and finally see this show complete and on the field. I'm personally looking forward to seeing the first official performance at the Grand Premier at the fairgrounds on Jun 11th... 74 more days, but who's counting? Summer hurry up!!!

I wouldn't argue with this but got a little chuckle because my french horn-playing daughter is finally back on mello this year after three years on trumpet. I guess it's the exception that proves the rule.

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One bump to give more attendees a chance to see this. Won't do it again.

The Blue Stars will have a booth at in the main exhibition hall at the Peoria Civic Center this weekend. Stop by if you're in the neighborhood and say hi to John, Gordy, Kristen, Melissa, Mark, Fran, and/or Dex! They'd love to see you and would love to chat about all things drum corps and Blue Stars, including our home shows in LaCrosse and in Metamora. The program says the exhibition hall will be open to the public 11 am to 1 pm on Saturday, so you won't have to pay to drop by. Wish I could be there too!