camoone

i've never been a huge pr fan (althought the brass performance in intro to 4th ballet suite was so #$(*@&(*$#@ amazing i can't help but listen to it whenever i think about it, and this has been going on for the past 5 years -- i think im obsessed), but 1991 pr is one of my favorite shows of all time. so far, it's actually my favorite pr show ever (though i have to admit that i haven't watched some of the best pr shows, according ot the general consensus, that have been performed -- but im still trying to get some time to watch pr 88, 89, and Tsar Pilato's DM year + 93, lol)...but having kept up with pr from 95 till now, give/take a year here and there (i havent kept up with the activity like i should have in 01 and 02), i really, really love pr 91. it has its faults, obviously, you can pick them out easily so i wont even mention the stuff. but there was so much emotion on that field. and i dont know if i made this up myself, or if someone else came up with this before me, but i honestly believe that in 90/91, pr put a curse on the baccanale (probably why i can't spell it right, nikk), so that any marching ensemble can never play it like it was meant to be played. phantom's 91 finals performance will always have a special place in my mind.

98 xmen - though i think i like the show more than others because of its music and not its execution 92 SCV - sure, it was dirty in some spots. but heck, the way they entered the stadium and the music they played, not to mention the bottle dance, were good enough for top 6 IMO ;)

Not knocking any corps, just listing my most memorable "screw ups".... BD 99 a horn player gets knocked in the head while backing up on the right side of a form, right in front of the camera (probably a busted lip somewhere in there). BD 98, right before the 'two circle' bit near the middle of the show, one of the lower sopranos holds a god awful sounding note past the release. Everyone in the stadium section I was in just looked at each other with weird looks on their faces. Cadets of BC 95, there's a company front after the second or third tune, and they rotate segmented parts of it right before the company front hits to close the piece. Right when the company front forms, two different horn players hit the dirt (running and soaked turf don't mix). BD 96, on the rack one of the snares loses control of a stick right in front of the camera. Madison 94, during Malaga there's a tenor feature where one of the guys completely loses control of a stick. He also happened to be the tenor tech for our 2/3 corps in 98 (americanos), and one night when the corps was about to hit the sack, someone pulled out a video and about 10 or 15 people crowded around the tv and started screaming when it happened. Speaking of my corps, I had a really bad screw up (that comes to mind, I'm sure there was many more than one) during the season -- although luckily for me, you can't go back and watch it on video because it was at a 2/3 show int he middle of the season. It was a prelim/finals type show, and we were really closing in on capital sound. During prelims in the afternoon, we had an awesome show in the heat, and closed to within around a point (we had been down more than 10 poitns to them earlier in the season). Then finals rolled around and we were pumped. I had just gotten my horn fixed (the third valve slide had a horrible ding in it and refused to move), and my sop tech or the guy fixing it had put a load of grease on it. Well, during a horn flash halfway through the opener, the valve slid off to where there was about a half inch of space between the removable slide and the slide connected to the third valve (for any of you sop players). However, it was still stuck on because the entire slide hadn't been greased, just enough to work well. I then spent the entire show trying to get the slide back on without breaking from form, which was ####, because it was honestly stuck off. Not playing in a hornline of less than 40 really shows up, too. The worst part though is that I was in a sop trio at the end of the show. Luckily, I took the time where we walk up to the play the trio to really focus on it and I finally slid it back. The funny part is that I finally played my trio part as well as it was supposed to be played for the first time all season.