KeithHall

I did back in 1979

In 1979 while stationed in Germany as a Military Police K9 Handler, I would sit out at the kennels for a 24 hour tour. I would sit out there a daydream and miss the drum corps activity. I had this cool idea of doing a light show on a football field. This was before LED lights and way before Brass Theater. When Star of Indiana turned into Brass Theater and then Blast. I knew my ideas weren't crazy! Just thought I'd share this with you

So if you are a Pre-DCI person....maybe this is not where you should be!!!!

Imperial Regiment (NY). I respected them but hated them. They had a really good drum line and would always beat ours although I think we were much closer in 1976. I always felt our horn line was better BUT the difference was....they had two brass instructors ALWAYS with them as we didn't.

DCI owns the Kobold library. I wish I could by some recordings again because my cassette's I got from him don't work any more

Precisionnaires came to the NT Open in 74 or 75 and blew me away!!!! I wish Ken Kobold was still alive so I could have gotten a recording of that show along with Toronto Optimists.

I knew it wasn't a real thing based on the guy who told us. He wanted to be a big shot and when he had the opportunity to take over our corps he merged us with a sad little corps. Yes Finleyville was great in 1975 although I was aSquire and Precisionaire fan and they took 13 and 14.

Looking at scores for 1975...as DCI World Championships approached PR was beating RC and then at Finals some weird changes happened, especially with Cavies. RC went from 7 to 9

Now it's been a few years (46) but I remember a former Phantom Regiment member telling some of us of a deal that DCI made with a certain PA corps to make top 12, which they did. In fact, said corps place ahead of Phantom. Does anyone have insight to this or was this guy just making stuff up?

I think they were stuck with a 56 score for a month.

I LOVE the quality today! If DCI and the corps currently making up DCI are okay with what they have then...Okay!

Back in the 1970's west coast corps had to travel east to compete against "the big boys!" Troopers (pre-1970) toured to be able to compete. Let's be honest, they were all that was available in that region until Anaheim and Santa Clara. Then came DCI and then everything changed. Smaller corps were eventually forced to undertake more touring. I marched in the 1970's and every Saturday we traveled to a city in NY, PA, OH or Ontario to compete. The good part was, as a teenager, we got 3 or 4 days of being able to be a kid and hang with our friends. Drum corps had two evenings of rehearsals a

Yeh, so I was just speaking about Bluecoats. But feel free to speak for me!

Going to say this here..... Drum corps misses The Empire Statesmen!!!! Every year the corps ENTERTAINED the FANS!!! I mean this in both DCI and DCA too. I was never a member of the Statesmen and was a loyal Rochester Crusaders member for a few years. Every year the Statesmen made sure that the audience left humming their songs. Today, probably The Bluecoats are the only corps that entertains the audience. DCI corps would be wise to read a how to manual by Vince Bruni, if there was/is one. Just my opinion

Good for Bluecoats!!! Entertain the Fans!!! Don't get into the same old crap every other corps does where you don't recognize the music!