Cptcastile

Yessssss, their opener was awesome!!!

Ah 1983, one of my favorite years of the activity. Do not make the mistake to only focus on the finalist corps this year. There were some outstanding corps from 13-25! Avant Garde, Troopers, Les Eclipes, Valley Fever and more!! I really liked Alliance from Boston as well. Crossmen and Geneseo did Russlan and Ludmilla, a very challenging classical piece as their opener. The top 12, well they were fantastic and some of the best musical shows IMHO. Variety is the spice of life and this year did not disappoint. Freelancers, 27th, Bridgemen, Sky Ryders...all excellent. I love Spirit this year. Suncoast tore then house down!!! Cavies did Pines of Rome making me fall in love with this great work. Phantom Regiment was pure power in 1983! Madison did an amazing classical opener and then jumped right into Strawberry Soup! Blue Devils were classic Devils, power, clean and amazing. SCV was on fire! One of my favorite years for SCV IMHO. And then the champions... What a great show. They set a new standard in the activity and would go on to pave the way for a truly new world in drum corps land. Yes, Boston did have an issue with some of the locals outside the stadium. I have always imagined that those locals had NO IDEA who they were dealing with!! LOL I do remember watching my brother play his baritone solo for solo and ensemble competition INSIDE the stadium. Yeah one guy standing on the turf inside this massive football stadium. Surely there was a better venue for this somewhere in Miami??? This was also the year Dagenham Crusaders from England made the journey to perform at DCI. It was a welcome addition to the international flavor of the activity.

I marched in the Scouts in 1985. I will never forget the sound when we came out of the tunnel for finals. The crowd EXPLODED! It was so loud that we could not hear our drum major start the show. You can see this if you watch the video. The back of the horn block actually steps off about two counts after the front of the block! We did recover, but that was rough. The top 12 in 1985 was very strong. Great music and some wonderful performances. The top 4 corps had amazing shows. Truly one of the best years of my life!!