Sackbut

I can't help but feel like drum corps as I once remembered and loved is gone. I'm not just talking about the recent rules changes either. In the past two seasons we've seen attendance come down drastically finals week, top shows designed only for effect, synths doubling the bass note of every sustain, and now we're about to see a divide in the drum corps community with this World Series of Drum Corps. When I performed in 2009 and 2010, it didn't look feel or sound anything like I had imagined when I had watched any other finals performance in drum corps history. I want to perform outdoors to a packed Camp Randall filled with 35,000 spectators. I want to play a brass acapella chord without a synth covering up the contra sound. I want to go to a finals and be able to enjoy the championship show because it's designed to be entertaining, not effective. I just don't think this is ever going to be a reality again, which is disheartening because I love the activity so much. I would give an arm and a leg to march even 6 or 7 years ago. I suppose I'll just hope that things will change for the better.

Well I joined the facebook group and unjoined it pretty quick. The reason I though it was funny to begin with was because she was unresponsive, wasn't smiling, and doing something incredibly trivial. When I found out that she was blind, the joke was over. She wasn't responsive or smiling because she couldn't see the camera. She's playing the cowbell because she wanted to be involved. I don't think that's something to be laughed at. Now usually I'm not very politically correct but come on, this is an actual person who worked just as hard as anyone else on the field that night, and she's become a laughing stock. Give her a break.....

Ah! My least favorite part of drum corps. I was on field lining in '08 and that is absolutely the worst tour duty EVER! Waking up 45 minutes before everyone else to line three fields and be late to breakfast really bites. In 09 I was put on scaffolding for spring training(FTW!) and was asked to switch over to field lining a week or two into tour(fail) because some of our field liners were "injured". They were healthy enough to be at rehearsal and never miss a show, but not healthy enough wake up early. I'm frustrated just thinking about it!

It was worse, before the '08 season. The only corps to outright win it all the way back until 93 were cadets, bd, and cavaliers. I was so happy to see someone else take the title and even more exited that it was my favorite corps with one of my favorite shows.

Plane Tickets.....

I love Xmen 03 but next to 02 it's just not AS good. But I definitely agree, the Crossmen shows of the early 00's were totally BA

The ability to take in information and apply it is the ultimate tool in drum corps. If you can't do that you're dead in the water.

I had heard that they had close to 90 age outs last year, so it's not hard to imagine them hurting for members right now.....

Let's not forget that only 5 out of about 35 performances are in a dome setting, and it's unreasonable to ask the performers to change what they do for a 7th of the shows. But it's even more unreasonable considering that drum corps REHEARSE outside. If you add up the total number of time you run your show during the season your looking in the area of 150 run throughs. How on earth can you run your show 145 times outside and be expected to get it right when it counts inside?

Oh you guys make me laugh. Never miss an opportunity to take a stab at guidry.

I wondered the same thing during the season. On July 3rd in Bristol I watched nearly every uniform get stained from that wet and damp grass and the ridiculous body work they do, but for the parade that occurred in the afternoon of the next day, every single uniform was clean.

And where exactly did you HEAR that from?

I mean it's gotta happen eventually, but how long is it going to take DCI to catch on? Not to mention that'd be frackin bad ###