Cathie Wiener

Well, crap I wound up on a different page. I say Ditto to Star 93. Didn't even like it by the end of the season. It took many years for me to appreciate this.

I'll sign up for a trumpet slot, that is if you don't mind me playing "Ode to Joy" on a euph... poorly I might add.

Congratulations SCVC! Your show is one of my absolute favorites of recent years. Just the best!

Championships were supposed to be in Mississippi for several years!?!?!?! I consider myself a survivor of the 93 tour and I wouldn't wish that finals location on anyone. I can't believe multiple years there would have ever been considered. I still don't know how they wound up with one year.

For Blue Knights in Buffalo in 95 we got a free day in Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. It was pretty cool. Then the buses picked us all back up at a predetermined time and we went and watched finals. I had a really good time.

Thanks Frank! I'm really excited to be there and so is Freelancers. If I get to perform with the mini corps (final instrumentation is still being decided) I'll be thrilled. If not I get to watch all you crazy musicians again. It's a win-win either way for me and maybe I'll actually get to stop and say hi to you guys this year.

Ummmm, yeah. So the Academy Dance Ensemble scored 100. 100!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me? I have to see that routine. If anyone knows how or where PLEASE let me know. That is unbelievable.

I remember being at my parents' house a couple of years ago and my dad was watching something on TV and the announcer started listing the names of the participants of whatever the sport/show was and all of a sudden I stopped what I was doing and shouted, "Hey that's Brandt Crocker." It was very odd to hear his voice outside of the drum corps arena.

All I know is, I would definitely NOT be late to this show. Too much great music to miss. I'm so excited. What can I say? I love mini corps!

My favorite announcer was whoever worked the Drum Beauty show. I don't even know if they have that show anymore, but the announcer would extend it out wonderfully. "Welcome to Druuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmm Beautaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" That was always my favorite.

There's also the One City Laser Show and Fireworks down near the High Falls. It's within walking distance from the hotels. Usually starts at 10:00pm. And this year it's a new show so we no longer have to argue about the floWEr city and the floUr city. That gets brutal. http://www.cityofrochester.org/article.aspx?id=8589939653

I looked at the preview for every show on the 6 different fan favorites DVDs and the one I'm thinking of is not on there. And I know I can get the show through WGI on demand, but you have to assemble a whole CD and I just want that one performance.

Just to clarify, this was worded very poorly on my part. I didn't mean the changes in the work/equipment themselves sucked (not saying they were mind blowing either) but I meant that it must have sucked for the guard to have to relearn their work just about every show we saw them. Thanks for the additional clarification. I had completely forgotten about the prayer shawls. I have to say, though, near the very beginning of tour when the guard was changing uniforms in the red tunnel, that was a cool effect and I only saw it from behind. I know it took a lot of "time" away from the guard because they were in there for so long, but it really was very cool. Probably a pain in the butt for you guys especially the logistics of the tunnel. I'm guessing that's one of the changes the corps members weren't heartbroken over.

Thanks so much!!!! Ode to Joy sounds familiar. I wish I could just purchase that show to watch on WGI. Oh well, I'll find a way to watch it. Thanks again.

Since I marched Freelancers that year, I got to see the plethora of show changes as we toured with you from the start of the season, but the changes the guard went through were easy to see each show and totally sucked. And then only having one flag at finals... I can't imagine. Since you obviously know what was going on that year, could you maybe clarify something? When we saw all the guard changes, even really early on we asked our staff what was going on, especially when the menorahs disappeared and the explanation we were given was that somewhere pretty early on during the West Coast shows you wound up getting a judge that was Jewish or very knowlegable about the Jewish religion and explained that the use of the menorahs was highly inappropriate or was representing the wrong ceremony/celebration or something along those lines and that the same was true with other parts of your show and that's why those huge changes were made so early on. Is this true? I'm curious because I've also had other people mention this exact reason that weren't associated with my junior corps marching days so they obviously heard from somewhere as well. Thanks in advance.

I couldn't sleep and was watching some WGI videos when I remembered a routine I saw many years ago. I'm not sure if this is one routine or I'm mistakenly combining two different performances but I was hoping someone could help me out in remembering the names of the guards. The first routine was what I call a "running" show, almost a little bit of what the original Blast! did with the colorguard members on different equipment constantly running from side to side one to two people at a time. The video of the WGI show I saw was way before Blast! though. The most memorable thing I remember about it was that there were multiple screens set up on both sides of the floor and the flow of travel of the group was from left to right as the audience watches it. There was always a constant stream of one girl girl running across the front of the floor from right to left and then from behind the screens on the left side a continous (it seemed like it lasted forever) stream of guard on different pieces of equipment with each line crossing the floor at a different speed. I remember thinking it had to be one of the most difficult sequences to stage I've ever seen. The second routine, which might actually still be the same routine was of an all-girl guard with A LOT of body movement. Normally I prefer equipment work but this was really well done and amazingly choreographed. The most memorable thing about it was a spiral was formed and the group was doing some pretty modern body work and the spiral would "pick up" people from the center to the outside layers one layer at a time until they formed one complete circle. I remember being highly impressed. Unfortunately I saw this on video so it could have been five to ten years after the actual show date, I have no way of knowing. If it is two separate shows though, I saw them in one sitting so they should be from the same year. I've actually gone to the WGI website and looked up scores from 1980 to 2000 to see if any of the group names ring a bell and I didn't have any luck. I was hoping someone here might know what shows I'm referring to. Thanks in advance. By the way, in my search for these shows I saw Cavaliers 1982 Winterguard show for the first time ever. Holy crap was that amazing. I can't believe I've never seen it before. A lot of the comments for that show say that their 1983 Bond show was even better. If anyone knows where I can see this could they PM me please? Thanks.

Blue Knights did a show in 95 in Montreal on a horrible, horrible baseball field. Of course the front sideline wasn't even with the stands bleachers, but if I remember correctly, the bleachers were movable! We watched the show staff move them while we warmed up. So why didn't they move them even to the front sideline? Plus, there were no permanent lights. The field was lit from the front only with light-all trailers. Man, the guard tosses sucked. I've mentioned this before, but also in 1995 (I think they still might do this) BK did an awesome standstill performance at Bandimere Speedway, a drag strip, in Colorado. We did show music plus some other cool stuff. But when we went to march off the speedway, we couldn't move. Walking in we could feel our feet sticking a little to the layers and layers of rubber that had accumulated on the track but after standing the entire length of the show and then some we started marching... and didn't. I vividly remember trying to turn to my left and my feet not moving. All I could think to myself was, "Don't cuss, don't cuss" because the race fans were less than 20 feet in front of us. We all did get off the track with our shoes still on (a minor miracle in my opinion) and some of us were probably only stuck for about 3 or 4 seconds but it seemed like a LONG time and I'm sure a good portion of the crowd was snickering at us trying to leave the track.

That's exactly what I had on my left shoulder in April of 2002. It's been over seven years and my shoulder seems just as stable now as it was seven years ago. And I don't have the fear of it dislocating as I still have for my right shoulder and my left shoulder was the more injured of the two. Thanks so much for the recommendation, but HELL no!!! I started watching that, lasted about 5 seconds and almost passed out. That thing looks like a torture device. I'm sure it truly helps with expanding range of motion, but I'll stick with the non faint-inducing door frame stretches thank you very much. I seriously had to lay on the floor just now to take deep breaths and NOT focus on the picture of that device. My cat starting pawing me and was like, "What the hell are you doing on the floor under your computer desk?" I really have to go have some orange juice or something.

Yeah, I've had capsular shrinkage surgery on both shoulders if anyone needs info. Plus, I was a guinea pig on the type of surgery so I have opinions for the old way (right shoulder, hack/slash/sew back up) and the new way (left shoulder, arthroscopic heating implement). The good thing is my shoulders no longer randomly dislocate and shouldn't ever again unless it's a catastrophic injury, and if it's a catastrophic injury I don't think shoulder dislocation will be my biggest issue. But now I have a HUGE loss of range of motion and strength in my shoulders and there are many, many favorite sports I can never play again. I miss volleyball and Ultimate Frisbee the most. But I'm very consistent with my range and flexibility exercises and I still get therapy about once a month with a killer massage therapist that gets into my shoulder and just stretches everything out (tendons, ligaments, etc.). I'm not going to lie... it hurts like a mother f***er, but the benefits far outway the pain.

No Amoskeag Sound? This makes me sad too.

I'm not saying these things don't happen anymore, I said... And then proceeded to list all (okay, almost all) the things my corpsmates and I used to do. My POINT was that once we were on the bus, we were our own entertainment. Yes, we had the radio for the outside world, but do you even know how many radio stations there were all the way back then? (If you marched before me, I know my "back then" isn't really back then, but I'm trying to make a point here. So shhh. ) -12. We had negative 12 radio stations. Okay, again not really. I can however remember how crazy it was if someone was able to buy a copy of Drum Corps World or even *Wow* a USA Today. Those things would be passed around the bus until they were almost unrecognizable. There were no cell phones to call boyfriends or girlfriends, no internet access, no blackstorms or whatever you kids call these devices nowadays. But there sure was a lot of bonding with your corpsmates, love 'em or hate 'em. It's that TIME that is lost by watching a movie, checking online, etc. and in my humble opinion, that's a big something that can't be gained back. Ever. The other point was this thread was supposed to be fun. Yay. We're all having fun now. And now just a few other things we did on the bus... Played the Is This Food game, played the What Was this Food When it Was Brought on the Bus Three Weeks Ago game, Played the Who Wants to Clean Out My Bus Pockets game, played the Tater Tot Surprise Name That Ingredient Game. I'm sure I'll think of a million more of these. Remember... Fun. F * U * N !

All I know is as soon as I hear the first electrical hum of the amps or the first note of the synthesizer out on the field *BAM* I'm looking for the floor of the basketball court. Those sounds are distinctively WGI to me and quite disoncerting to hear out on the field.

Have fond memories of the DCI shows in Winstom-Salem aside from the fact that I walked into the men's restroom two years in a row. In my defense, the restrooms were unmarked and the second time I remembered what I had done the year before, so I very carefully and slowly walked in through the restroom door saw guard equipment, guard uniforms and make up sitting on the benches, so I thought, "Cool, got it right this year." Proceeded to walk in, then urinals... "D*mn" and walked right back out. The corps staying there was obviously co-ed and that was all the guys' guard equipment and show make up I saw. But those shows really were a blast. I hope you guys have a great show there and have fun.

That's what I'm saying our windows didn't open. We did have the ONE little window a few feet in front of the back seat of the bus that popped open sideways to tease you with the sound of the air driving by. And if you were in the last seat of the bus, forget it! The pounds of sweat you lost were the price you paid for the privilege of that seat.

Hell I'd have taken windows that opened! After my first two camps or so, I knew AC was just a luxury we should never expect. And then if it suddenly worked, we could dance the happiness hula and then our bus driver would immediately drive over a gravel road so the AC unit could suck up layers of gravel into its unfeeling mechanical heart and die... again.