mingusmonk

Today's news makes this OLD thread an interesting read.

They didn't use mylar in 93.

This was my 4th season as a drum corps viewer. 1986 I only went to one show and I had no idea what I was getting into. 1987 was also just one show. But the thing is, I saw SCV live in 87 and instantly became an all-in drum corps fanatic. Let me know if someone decides to break with the rules and do a 1988 thread because I hopped around the Midwest like a deadhead following The Grateful Dead's summer tour at 16 years old. On to '89. (NOTE: Perspective of a nerdy and under-trained musician at the time). My first show of the year was the debut for a few of these groups: June 16, 1989 Goshen IN 1 Phantom Regiment 72.100 2 Star of Indiana 68.900 3 Bluecoats 63.700 4 Colts 46.100 5 Glassmen 38.400 6 Quad City Knights 37.800 7 Northmen (WI) 22.700 8 Guardsmen 17.900 Phantom came out on fire. Most of the corps still felt like they were just getting started. But PR felt like they were poised to plow through the rest of the season's competition. I was a DCI Today subscriber so I had already done my homework and studied up. But nothing could prepare me for the power that this corps packed out of the gate. And they were hitting on all captions. Due to friends marching, I mostly knew what Star had in store for us. They did not disappoint. This battery hit the drums REAL HARD which was right up my alley. By the end of the summer most of my high school friends were playing Cheerio, their Scottish flavored cadence, with obsession. The brass was already a step up on 1988. I was sitting next to a friend that had marched contra at Star in 86, 87 and 88. 89 would have been his ageout and the look on his face was indescribable. He knew exactly what he was missing. It was a wild and sad feeling. But within a matter of days he would be in a plane with Bill Cook to join the corps and march that ageout season. This was a new look and sound for The Bluecoats. It wasn't truly complete and IMO, the most disappointing part of the show was that most complete part: the playful and cutesy arrangement of Johnny One Note. Fortunately there was growth on the way. --Cut to my next show stop, two weeks later-- June 30, 1989 Mishawaka IN 1 Phantom Regiment 82.100 2 Cavaliers 79.300 3 Sky Ryders 70.500 4 Limited Edition 50.400 5 Quad City Knights 43.100 6 Bandettes 42.400 7 Guardsmen 30.600 Phantom still bringing the fire. Great percussion BTW. Sometimes they may have been guilty of a not entirely balanced contribution aceross percussion sections. But this group had front and battery all doing the things. I would just walk along side of this battery playing their Wooten cadence(s) and they were so poised. Cavaliers had begun honing in on what they could, and would, do best. I was at their first show in 1988 when they debuted Firebird with struggles and tepid fan reactions, but this was a new year and a new program. Is it wierd that Limited Edition's Carmina Burana is etched into my brain more than Sky Ryders' rendition? Always enjoyed LE but they could never seem to turn the corner that they were aiming for. --Cut to one month later-- July 29, 1989 DCI Mid-America Bloomington IN 1 Star of Indiana 89.500 2 Blue Devils 89.400 3 Cavaliers 89.200 4 Cadets of Bergen County 89.000 5 Bluecoats 82.600 6 Suncoast Sound 76.400 7 Blue Knights 70.600 8 Florida Wave 69.800 9 Troopers 65.600 10 Colts 64.400 11 Glassmen 57.200 12 Spartans (WA) 49.500 First year of the Bloomington show being at Memorial Stadium. No more soccer field thanks to Bill Cook buying/donating lights to IU for the football stadium. It was also the first year of the Mid-America Regional that would shuffle sites and formats in the 90's. Great venue. Watched Star rehearse there in the afternoon. Basked in that show with the nearly empty stands that would shutter and vibrate when they hit rim-shots. This was back when I was a secluded and naive Midwestern kid and had not been exposed to the Star backlash. In retrospect, they probably didn't do themselves any favors with the haters by book-ending the show with Henry V and Crown Imperial. 😁 As has been stated earlier in the thread, this was definitely a stepping stone year. The show wasn't pushing any envelopes. It was just a top notch vehicle that was setup for them to prove they had the power to move. They were getting into the later season very strong, if a little inconsistent. I have a lot of friends that love the 89 Devils as (I think) a kind of last hurrah for a certain era. But for me, as a big fan of the 88 show, the 89 program felt like a fallback. Almost apologetic for "grey pants and modern footwear" in 88. 😲 They were executing but it felt stale. Bluecoats were now getting things fleshed out. The full show had so much more maturity to it. That hokey Johnny One note would still be a bit of an albatross but look for cleaning and finessing the rest of the show to pay off. As someone that came to drums corps just after the first Florida Suite, I just adored the Suncoast show. I didn't have 1985 as a reference. I get everyone's issues with it now. But I will always be glad that I at least got to experience the 1989 rendition before they dissolved. --Cut to a week and a half later-- August 10, 1989 Dayton OH 1 Santa Clara Vanguard 95.000 2 Cadets of Bergen County 94.000 3 Star of Indiana 93.000 4 Freelancers 87.900 5 Suncoast Sound 87.000 6 Glassmen 68.100 7 Limited Edition 65.800 8 Quad City Knights 62.600 I hustled with some friends in a not-so-safe three hour drive to Centerville because I wanted to see SCV live so badly. 87 SCV sparked my passion for the activity. I had missed 88 SCV live and I WAS NOT going to miss a chance to see their newest rendition of Phantom of The Opera up close and personal. We made this great little show with plenty of time. I was in love with the SCV show and was not disappointed. I didn't know what to think of Cadets from up close. The battery was shockingly full of notes and pleasing to this young drummer. The Aungst transition was now in full effect. But I had zero read for what was going on visually. The section of 2 simultaneous songs being played against each other already stood out to me. Suncoast, Freelancers, Star of Indiana. Also two of the best front ensembles that year in SCV and Star ... man, what a great show! I miss the suspense of not knowing how things were exactly turning out night to night. I understand why it isn't that way so much now. But I miss that feeling. --Cut to another hustle 9 days later-- August 19, 1989 DCI World Championships Kansas City MO 1 Santa Clara Vanguard 98.800 2 Phantom Regiment 98.400 3 Cavaliers 97.200 4 Blue Devils 95.900 5 Cadets of Bergen County 95.600 6 Star of Indiana 95.300 7 Madison Scouts 93.600 8 Bluecoats 90.300 9 Suncoast Sound 88.000 10 Freelancers 87.300 11 Velvet Knights 87.000 12 Crossmen 84.000 Our 6-day off-site band camp was done on Friday afternoon. I went with a friend and his parents on a 10 hour drive straight to Kansas City to catch the final night. Beautiful balmy midwest summer weather. The stadium had a fantastic drum corps sound from even the cheap seats. And we were defenitely in the cheap seats. We had already gotten the dispatch that our friends at Star had won field percussion. Hype. I loved just about everything that night. Win, lose, or draw. I was thrilled SCV won but would have been happy for Phantom to have won. Cavaliers were an uplifiting view from the nosebleeds. BD didn't know they were also saying farewell to an era. That solo frack is etched into my brain. The sensation of a silent stadium of roughly 30K people gasping in uni son. Silently looking to their neighbors, followed by hushed whispers was unreal and something that doesn't leave you. Seeing Cadets from high that night, it all clicked. A helluva underdog show. A lot has been said here regarding "What about *this* ending or *that* ending." But the way I saw it, the ending worked. Most of my friends, especially Cadets friends, wonder ... "What if they had another week, or two." which is probably accurate. Could have done more cleaning and finessing of the show and not had to water the brass so much. Also, the best battery meat on the field. Attack on Rue Plumet sheet music made the rounds like wildfire the next couple of years. Crazy fun notes. This Star show will always hold a special place. And as much as it was a setup to the next Star of Indiana, they aged out a ton of talented folks. They had the I&E champs in Timpani, Snare and Contra aging out. A lot of those tubas from epic 1986 Close Encounters theme were at their end. Madison was fun and loud and reliable. Bluecoats arrangements after Johnny One Note were intoxicating. Funny Valentine was touching. Sing, Sing, Sing was rollicking fun. The beautiful reprise of MFV at the end was a masterstroke. Also, God bless the mylar. Farewell Suncoast The Freelancers practically stole the night. As happy as people were for the Crossmen, the Freelancers' story was obviously a crowd favorite. And they were certainly ecstatic. We felt like we heard them play the ET Adventures on Earth 120 times in the parking lot. Like they did not want the night to end. Can't say that I blame them. I feel like 89 VK gets overshadowed by 87 and 88. I loved the more jazzy feel of this one and they had some crazy soloists in this show. Some classic Matt Savage tribal funky beats. Even if head choice was suspect. I appreciate going with mylar but the Premier Marathons were in a class all their own. Would have been a big difference. When dusting off the cobwebs for this post I realized something. This finals was the first time I ever saw the Crossmen. More jazz. How much jazz was there in drum corps in 89? Wow. Pleasant. A nice way to break back into finals. This show was my swan song as a fan. Finally marching drum corps would change me in many ways. One of the very few downsides is that I instantly lost my naive fan view and watch everything (not just the performances ... everything) with a much more critical, and sometimes jaded, eye. I would say goodbye to my childlike enjoyment of the activity. I still have plenty of drum corps joys, but it isn't the same thing. For any of you that are "just a fan," don't feel slighted. You've got it great.

Side note: 1992 was the first year of Doug Thrower on the staff. Only on as a Brass Tech at the time. Doug has always been fanatical about The Beatles. Many have made comments suggesting he steered them into the 2019 show selection. He denies it. Either way, he was the right man for those arrangements.

The perseverance and drive of that group of kids and staff, which finished the season with only one drill set left the same as the start of the season, is part of the reason there was still a bluecoats taking the field in 2019. There is no coincidence that the Penny tradition started that year and means so much.

I watch this at starting at 6:50ish and cannot figure out where it fell flat. Was it perfect? Nah. Were the MM and Vis Techs able to compensate for the overshot drill difficulty? heh. Nope. But fall flat? A beautiful peace and love ballad reminiscent of the Summer of Love from which the tune came. A touching flugle solo by a recent Bugler Hall of Fame member. Insane drill velocity and musical tension reflecting the turmoil of the late 60's. Released in a massive face melting company front and power ending. Absolutely covering the field in white silks. I guess it wasn't the 6th year in a row if big band swing endings (which if it wasn't obvious in 1990, was absolutely redundant) but ... flat? Nah. https://www.facebook.com/tom.buell.9/videos/1295133113921534/

I'd take the volume of this horn line any day of the week.

Hey all! The Bluecoats media archivist is desperately searching for any 1970s video on Bluecoats. Unfortunately we have little-to-no video of our own, as most parents that traveled didn't have video equipment and the corps did not either. We'll take anything you have however and if it is on tape and can be shipped, we'll pick up the cost for that! PM me if you have anything to offer. Thanks for much!

Came here to see the chatter yesterday. I didn't see antyhing going on so I left. I only delve into a couple official annual corps threads. As far as I see it, those are about 2020 program content and development. This is worthy of it's own thread, IMO.

Worth noting that they are in the Community College division. 2 year schools. For one reason or a another each were not accepted at 4 year university cheer programs. Or at least, one that was a match for them.

No idea in audition numbers. Every single young man in that picture has marched Bluecoats at least one year. Hence ... all of them wearing their previous battery sections shirts. I'm not sure how to be more clear?

Not necessary total. But they do all happen to be wearing the battery shirt of their first year with bluecoats.

Whatever it is, they'll be doing it with a 100% vet snareline.

Jay was our middle-man. If you have any questions about the list, feel free to PM me. Now you know why I made my comment earlier about titles. 😂

Charley Poole was the arranger in 88.

2000 - Dan Delong (Percussion Coordinator) 2001 - Dan Delong (Percussion Coordinator) 2002 - Dan Delong (Director of Percussion Education) 2003 - Dan DeLong (Director of Percussion Education) : Lane Armey (Caption Head)

Was just scanning your sheet. Not sure Hannum was ever technically the caption head at Star of Indiana. But he definitely was NOT caption head in 1990. Dubie was. Hannum started consulting mid-season. Dubie may have technically remained caption head with Hannum there as well in 92 and 93. They co-arranged.

I was forwarded an email by a corps to help someone requesting similar information ... maybe you? Except the verbiage was Percussion Directors. As we move through the decades the term "caption head" becomes more nebulous across time and the "percussion director" might mean different things. I'll get you something to work with though.

DCI corps have been way ahead of the curve on this. Marching bands? Not so much.

Bluecoats run 3. Innovations North Canton Innovations Pittsburgh Tour of Champions Akron

Another example of how I've been around here too long. @garfield's classic and enthralling 990 thread is no longer a part of DCP institutional memory.

Who would of thought that the bloodsport of public hiring and firings wouldn't be enough to satiate the beast that is summoned by this annual ritual?

Yep. Beautiful. Especially with a flugelhorn solo. Jump to 8:20 for the shade to go whiter.

Anyone else ever get the feeling they've been around these forums too long? Just me?

Apparently all those Broken City members that have been marching other corps don't rate. 🤷🏼‍♂️🤭 Oh my, where will 3 of the 5 Bluecoats tenors go now that Mike has left Blue Knights? (For example)