[2015 Drum Corps Associates World Championships Finals]

With respect to Carolina Gold and any other 11th place finishes, I think it is really dumb to have the 11th place corps get to go on finals. Either have a cut-off or don't. What do you tell 12th place? You can play during intermission? That's like having 13th place play before DCI retreat.

After missing finals by 0.2 it was amazing to get to perform one more time, stress free, under the lights. That was the performance of my life. There was a palpable energy and joy on that field, that I am so grateful I had the chance to feel. You can think what you want about the practice, but it means a lot to the 11th place corps. I don't think we could have ended the season on a better note.

[2015 Drum Corps Associates World Championships Preliminary Competition]

Was that the penalty that hit Carolina Gold? The metronome was audible for about a minute as Alliance was setting up, then it stopped (some audience members applauded at that point), but then it reappeared for another 30 seconds or so about a minute into Alliance's performance.

But while that was particularly obnoxious, and certainly should have been penalized, the warm-up zone in that area is just too darn close to the stadium. During almost every ballad, I could hear another corps' battery playing in that location.

Gold's penalty was for being 4 seconds under time. We weren't warming up during Alliance's performance, nor did any of our captions have a met.

[practice sites]

Carolina Gold will be at:

Rothfuss Park

1648 Five Mile Line Rd.

Penfield,NY 14526

[Southern Showdown Review]

Carolina Gold's Guard made it to WGI finals in April so they put a lot into their program. However I think the outside show lets them have twice as many people participate. (I think indoor is limited to less than 20) The main CG person there is a Madison Alum I believe.

I'm seen a few people on here make the connection with Legacy (the WGI group), but honestly I think there are only 3 people marching this summer who marched Legacy during winter, and there were only 2 or 3 people on Legacy who marched Gold in 2014. The groups actually seem to be pretty unrelated besides finances honestly. As a member, the biggest boon I see to the guard size is recruitment by the members. The person who convinced me to march was individually responsible for at least 6 people joining. The people who have marched just tend to be very vocal about enjoying the experience, and it draws more people in. Also, we have amazing guard staff (and I'm not just saying that because I know Drew reads DCP threads). We have two Madison alum and two Crown alum (3 of whom marched First Flight Winterguard), and they are all so good at what they do. Our caption head is probably the single most talented guard choreographer/instructor in Eastern NC. Every program that he touches flourishes.

[Southern Showdown Review]

Thanks for the review. It's always nice to get some outside perspective on the show. To clarify, Gold's guard has 44 members although we marched one hole due to a forgotten uniform.