Thanks for the Magic props, guys! I marched these two summers with Magic, and they were two completely unique seasons. 1995 was trial after trial...bad busses, tough situations all summer (we didn't make finals of DCI Midwest...terrible performance that afternoon in Ypsilanti...) and finally got it together for finals. Barely. I think the show maxed out way, way early in the season, and we struggled to make it great by the end of the year. We actually won DCI South that summer...
1996 was incredible. We teetered on the edge of inconsistency all summer long until Robert Smith rounded us up after the Clifton, NJ show and asked us if we REALLY wanted to be great. He told us if we were going to be great, we'd work harder in the last two weeks of tour than we ever have in our lives. Of course, we all said, "yes, we want to be great..." The next two weeks are a total blur to me, but we pushed ourselves SO hard, and maxed out a pretty challenging show. We rehearsed nonstop. Unfortunately, we peaked on Semi's night, with the highest score the corps would receive (prior to the 2002 DII group...which was outstanding). Our Finals performance was good on energy but not our cleanest run. I'm still desperately trying to find a video of our semi's performance from 1996! Still, the two best summers of my life.
My top 12 favorites:
12. 1983 Cadets
11. 1985 Suncoast
10. 1991 Star
9. 1999 BD (a ton of my Magic pals moved on to BD this summer)
8. 1990 SCV
7. 1987 Cadets
6. 1988 Suncoast
5. 1990 Cavaliers
4. 2014 Bluecoats (innovation at it's finest, I think)
3. 1993 Star (see above)
2. 1996 Magic (biased!)
1. 1987 Cadets