DRB

1980. Stone Ground Seven.

As the "yutes" would say, back in the dark ages of the 1970's, I had been in the school music program for many years and had noticed the corps and the unique sound they had and the great music they played. When still in high school a number of us went to a show and saw some big time corps, Oakland, PR, Kilties, Garfield, Squires, Blue Stars. I felt that I would be good enough to be in one of the corps and of course I was told by my peers that would never be possible. So I went to a small local corps who was happy to have anyone as back the the dark ages there were no tryouts. If you wanted in, you were basically in. After a couple of years I finally got to march in a finalist corps - what an experience that was. To this day I miss it and wish I could do it again.

Up until the early 80's the standard snare was 15" with a silver dot or occasionally a Remo clear dot. I enjoyed the sound of the TDR's and Challengers much more so than today's Kevlar. Today's snares just do not have the tone quality - they sound like someone playing on a Formica countertop. Marty had PR marching a 40" bass up through about 1980. Brought a lot of bottom end to the sound. Tenors were 14-16-18 and went to 12-14-16 with the Ludwig Power Toms. Then Slingerland came out with the cut-away toms and I still question if anyone has produced as fine a tenor sound as the Slingerland cut-aways.

Keith, a friend of mine, a well known judge, judged a non-sanctioned event about 1985 and was given the old tic sheet to judge on the field. He later confided in me how many more tics were there than he would have guessed. This was from a judge who had years of experience with the activity. It would be interesting for DCI to run two sets of judges at shows to evaluate scores/results based on using the tic system compared with the system of today.

The absolute best ballad closer of all time is - 1979 & 1980 Spirit of Atlanta Let It Be Me Topic Closed

1979 & 1980 Spirit of Atlanta - What? The reaction of drum corps fans after having the ears blown off by those magnificent horn lines.

I was there. I was convinced Friday night that Madison had beaten BD and won the show. As smooth as BD was, Madison was pure, raw corps power - probably unlike anything of the modern brass band era. Madison won fair and square.

Totally absolutely agree 1000% and more. These youngin's have no idea what they missed. I've never heard a horn line play with that intensity and volume of beautiful sound since. No recording could ever capture what they did with Let It Be me.

Agreed.

I think it was about 1978 when the Kilties had three small toms mounted on their snares. Did they have some type of carrier back then?

While I was certainly not a close friend to him, I remember him and will always think of him as a first rate person. He was nice enough to respond to an email I sent him a few years ago and remembered me after many years. Marty moved the activity forward. He is a legend.

I would also say 1980 Spirit of Atlanta. The problem with the recordings is that no recording could fairly capture the power of that corps. It was incredible.

I really did not become aware of the corps activity until 1976. However I've read that maybe the best overall line of all time was 1975 SCV. I heard they approached perfection. Also agree that Oakland Crusaders should have been in the mix. They were absolutely fabulous. I would have pulled the 84 SCV and the 99 Cavies for these two. As I was not following corps at the time, no tenor feature that I have ever seen compared to the 2000 Cadets. That was amazing.

I'm drawing a blank on the name but let's not forget the soloist for the Colts in the early 80's. Pretty good as I recall.

1978 Phantom Regiment 1987 SCV