OldSnareDrummer

I want to alter my reply and add this.

Similar story to yours in that I'm a 70s-80s guy who was away from the activity for a lot of years afterwards before becoming a born-again fan in the 2000s. Similar culture shocks too, but I think I've recovered from that. Back in the day, as they say, my corps always had a small number of females in the drum and horn lines. Some pretty darn good musicians they were, too. Probably as many guys in the guards today as there are girls.

Old time Cavaliers: 1975 - Love Russian Christmas Music 1976 - Not even so much the show, but the re-birth ala the Blue Devils the same year. New, updated and sophisticated uniforms. They looked Cavalier. 1980 - as mentioned, the step-over. Was nothing particularly difficult to pull off, but it just looked so dang cool. Newer Cavaliers: 1995 - You can never go wrong with The Planets. 2004 - 007 2017 - Men are from Mars, also for the Mars/My Way integration. That was brilliant.

Good ol' alumni. That's great to learn. They sure did a fabulous job and I'm sure worked very hard and had a ton of personal investment to bring things back. That speaks to a point Stu was making in another thread about corps loyalty.

I've never subscribed- always just gone to a buddy's house to watch events. I was thinking at one time they did have an on demand feature where you could watch any/all DCI events from the past. I'd pay a few extra bucks to have that.

Glad someone included 1973. Everyone in Warhawk Stadium that night left with their ears blown back to the back of their heads.

The history of the Blue Stars is a pretty remarkable story. From Midwest Combine in the 70's to nearly winning DCI in the infant years. Then a steady trek in the mid-finalist range for a few years before whammo, the bottom fell out and nearly 30 years of competing in Division II/III/A60 before returning to finals. But they held in there and still competed while a lot of other corps were dying off. Does anyone with more knowledge of their history know what changed for their organization to bring them back to the top 12 after all that time?

As a brother from the Drum Corps Old Guy community, my answer is no. Leave them to the alumni corps.

We just thought it looked cool and we were all bad a**es for sticking our middle fingers out. Turns out it' was an extremely effective and smart way to grip.

Joel was the drum major that went on to the Oakland Crusaders, wasn't he? Quite the showman ala (arrghh what was his name) from the Chicago Vanguard. First saw DeLasalle in '73 and again in '74. They had rising stars written all over them.

A little research shows you are not mistaken. I never knew that about Marty. That'd make a good trivia question for my know-it-all corps buddies.

Always an aura of pride when Commandant's Own takes the field. Thanks for the morning lift to my day.

Colbert et al are on way past my bedtime. I'm lucky to make it through the first of twenty Big Bang Theory episodes on every night.

Just as in the NCAA, my bracket is humiliatingly busted.

I'll go with Keith Hall's quote from another thread. Is NOW better than THEN or is THEN better than NOW? I like.....NOW was made better because of THEN! THEN was great and NOW is great! With that said, agreed. To come on a Drum Corps board and state I no longer support DCI is rather pointless. It's always been a great activity and is today (also agreed) better than ever.