BD2Rings

If you want legs, show some pictures of the Blue Stars from the '70s. Those hot pants were all the rage then.

A previous post shared a concern as to whether or not the ATM was bolted to the floor. The third video provided by Jeff DeMello shares statements and video that the stolen pick up truck was used to break the ATM off the secured bolts. The 5th video listed actually shows the damaged bolts remaining on the floor at the 47-50 second range.

And just for fun. Blue Devils set another all time record, based on the SCVC score of 994.2. For the first time ever, the Blue Devils have lost by almost 900 points. That has got to belong in a record book somewhere.

Over the decades, there have been many names used for the various drum corps circuits. Way back when, they were actually called 'A' corps and 'B' corps. Now they are 'World' and 'Open'. I'm sure some here can throw in a few more old references. Within the Blue Devil family, the corps have always been called 'A', 'B', and 'C'. Granted this didn't take a great deal of creative thought, but that is what happened. The 'B' corps was created during the time of the 'B' circuit. Nothing has been done since to change that original name. They are Blue Devils, through and through, but compete in a different circuit. Other organizations have branched off (at least with regards to names). Santa Clara Vanguard is their 'A' corps, but their 'B' corps has been blessed with the Vanguard Cadets moniker. I agree with the OP sentiment here. It is decades past due for the BDB corps to have their 'own' identity, or at least name. I sincerely hope that it not become Blue Devil Cadets, however appropriate it may be. After all, what is a cadet? Makes perfect sense why SCV did this. Then again, much of the Blue Devil organization is about the 'family' of corps they provide. The first show of each season is 'Family Night', where each of the 3 corps present their shows to the Blue Devil fans. There is no competition. The joy of this evening is to have the massed horn lines and massed drum lines warm up together. Some of those 'C' corps kids are still in the single digits, and this night they get to stand shoulder to shoulder with their 'B' and 'A' brothers and sisters. Quite a night for the 'C' corps members. Some 8 year old kid gets to play along side a defending international champion. I'm sure some of them are jazzed. Will a rename happen? Probably not. The Blue Devil family will prevail. As it should.

Pulled from a BD web page as I am not at the show: DCI East Allentown Aug. 6 DCI Allentown Blue Devils 95.250 The Cadets 95.200 Carolina Crown 93.700 Santa Clara Vanguard 91.050 Boston Crusaders 88.250

I have not posted here for a very long time. My reason for not participating in DCP was the BD haters. While there are still some here, mostly recycling the same trash as in years past, the tone, at least tonight, is far better than I ever remember it being back when. So for those of you showing civility and sportsmanship, I thank you. I can understand the frustration that some must feel when the same corps / team always wins. How many people have felt that way about the Yankees, over a period of decades? I remember many hating the Dallas Cowboys back when, when they were on a winning streak. How many actually hated the San Francisco 49ers during the 80s with Joe Montana and Steve Young? Even in this thread, there were some references back to the frustrations felt by some when the Cavaliers were winning. Should we include Star of Indiana? I was quite amazed, and even concerned, when I saw the Cadets show at Stanford. I was not the only BD alumnus to feel that way. The Cadets show grabbed my attention more than corps have done for years. I found myself wishing that it was BD doing that. But that wasn't true that night. BD has had to do some serious work to regain the lead this year. They are not trying to hold an undefeated season here, and all of you know it. I strongly request that all of you who who are fully unable to think beyond the park and bark recycled trash talk, either bite your tongue, finger tips, or keyboard here. Many of the posters on this thread, even those admittedly not BD lovers, have made efforts to keep this discussion civil. I confess, I never expected to find this at DCP, and the fact it is coming from outside the BD community is fascinating. I marched in the mid '70s, long before many of you were even a glimmer in your parent's eyes. I have seen competition at it's best and worst. I have both felt the joy of the first 2 wins by the Blue Devils, which just happened to be the same years of frustration experienced by the Muchachoes and Bridgemen. I am truly old school when I marched, but can still find some joy in what can be done by a talented pit. There is a great deal of talent in today's drum corps. The designs of this year, collectively, present a strong package for the enjoyment of our activity. My personal belief is that those who can only show a consistent negative attitude, are years away from realizing this, and may be unable to enjoy what is being presented to them. If you don't like the Blue Devils, so be it. But realize there is an incredible amount of talent wearing that uniform. I heard many of their rehearsals this year. up close and even personal. I know what they can do. If you can't share my perspective, then go look at the results from I&E from this year. Summarize this for your understanding. Also take a look at some videos on You Tube from the BD opener say in Denver, versus what they did tonight. There is a whole new opening field position, and the entire visual presentation has changed. A whole new visual presentation for the opener, and I've not seen one remark from ANYBODY on this thread that the Blue Devils opening was sloppy or dirty. That's because it WASN'T. At least not in comparison to the other corps. There are two weeks remaining in this season, and nothing is guaranteed. Take note of what the Blue Devils have already accomplished this season. They are capable of great things. The talent is there. If you still cannot see what BD presents, so be it. But at least come up with a new set of complaints. The park and bark hasn't worked in years past, and it's not working now. I repeat my praise for those of you showing civility. It's a breath of fresh air. Thank you.

First, I used to march with ScoJo back in the day, although I was in the horn line. If there is anyone fully capable of creating a championship drum line, Scott can, and has done so repeatedly. Second, it seems there is an expectation for a DCI champion to sweep all captions. While that is nice, it is not the norm. We (Scott, over a hundred others, and I) did it in '76 and that was a true mark as it hadn't been done before. I can't and won't speak for Scott, and won't even begin to state that I know what is behind any percussion numbers, but the BD drum line is still an impressive entity. Potentially, one section can always cost a corps a championship, even when all other captions are swept. What are the accumulated increases in the swept captions? If the weak section loses by more than the accumulated gains, game over. I somehow doubt that the BD percussion is a weak section however. Scott has been doing this far too long, and is far too experienced to allow this to happen. Far too much talent auditions for BD every year for any section to ever be weak. Why is the BD drum line not on top? I can't say, and I won't pretend. They still earn lots of my respect.

It's interesting to note how this thread has morphed. The OP was openly hostile towards BD, without even thinking there might be a reason for BD to do this. I have no desire to point my finger directly at any other corps, and wish that had not happened above, but BD was left hanging when the housing arrangements fell through. The hotel was the result of unfortunate circumstances, and is a cost to somewhere in the drum corps activity that would not have happened if not for the event. All corps must be the most supportive and respectful guests at all times, as other corps may be negatively affected for lapses. This is one such occasion. I doubt this will mean much for the BD haters though. Flame on DCP.

Hacienda theater in Dublin CA

I will try to add my two cents to all of this, and hope to take an abstract into something more permeable. First, there was a time, long ago, when the Soviet Union ambitiously tried to game the system with regard to the Olympics. They were not the only ones. The 'Miracle on Ice' from the '80 Winter Olympics was a byproduct of these Soviet efforts. In a nutshell, the Olympics were 'suppose' to be for amateur athletes. Every Olympiad, the Americans chose athletes from various college campuses, in an attempt to adhere to the amateur principles. The Soviets, East Germans, Chinese, and others, did not. Soviet teams often consisted of the national team players, whose full time jobs were to be on the national teams. For the countries trying to adhere to this amateur direction, competing in the Olympics was playing against a stacked deck. The medal counts for Soviet block countries and for the Chinese always seemed disproportional. It was at this time of my life, that I developed a dislike for competition that was fully based on subjective judging. This would include the likes of gymnastics, figure skating and the like. Odd that I spent 4 years marching in a drum and bugle corps. Second, and fully separate from the first, I can understand why some people have come to dislike the Blue Devils, even when I am a life long Blue Devil. When one corps/team/individual is a consistent front runner, they become a target. Be it BD, the Steelers, Yankees, Cowboys, UCLA basketball, USC Trojan football, Lance Armstrong, or whomever, many want to see the victors fall. In drum corps, it has not always been BD. Cavies and Cadets have had their days as targets too. When Crown and/or Coats win their first (possibly of many) championship, they too will become targets. It is inevitable. Third, is where we attempt to merge the previous two entities. How do you take a subjective entity, such as judging a musical competition (and any and all possibly influences that will come with it), with the frustration some have with the Yankees? You can't. Drum corps is nothing like the 400 meter hurdles. A clock may be used in drum corps competition, but the clock is not what decides the victor. Drum corps is also not like the Tour de France. Many disliked Lance Armstrong due to his lengthy stay at the top, but this dislike was no factor is determining Lance's efforts against the clock. The tour is decided by the accumulated time against the clock over many days. Bottom line, is there is no room in competition for favorites. If you hate the Yankees, so be it. You can choose to hate them your entire life, but it will have little to no influence on their win loss record next season. The same will be true if you hate BD. End of story. Introducing an applauseometer for drum corps competition makes about as much sense as using the same equipment for the next USC / Notre Dame game. If you hate USC, so be it, but it will not affect the next game in which these two teams clash. You may not like judging, nor the way it is done. And I would understand you for feeling that way. But the judging system of today is much better than what was used in the past. Go to either corpsreps or fromthepressbox and look at scores from the last week of 1974. On 8-10, at the US Open, BD was 5.35 points above DeLaSalle Oaklands 83.15 vs, 77.8. Just six days later, at DCI prelims, the Oaklands out scored BD 84.00 vs. 80.55. That score change went from 5.35 up, to 3.45 down in six days. That is a cumulative change of 8.8 in six days. There was a huge shuffle in the placements between semis and finals. But there really is no way to judge drum corps in a non-subjective way, even with that applausometer, as the subjective choice would only be made by others. GH has made many, many suggestions of recent years to changing the style of drum corps. Some love him for it, and others do not. You dislike BD, fine. Realize that you have chosen to dislike them. BD has been on top of the ball throughout all of GH's influences, and can still come up with shows that work. Even with George Steinbrenner's passing, I still don't like the Yankees either.

Easy list. Jerry Seawright - he let you do what he knew you could do Jim Ott Wayne Downey Mike Moxley Mel Stratton and pretty much the entire Odello family.

I never wanted to be a starving artist. Graduated from then named Southwest Missouri State in Springfield MO, with a major in Information Systems Mgt. That would be back in May of '83. Campus is now Missouri State, a promotion of sorts. I did play in college concert ensembles, jazz bands, brass choirs, but none of that was on the SMS campus. All of that was either at Diablo Valley College (junior college in Pleasant Hill, CA) or Chico state.

It truly amazed me that someone wanted to 'steal the thread', so to speak, on the comments of that article. It was all over the use of 'devil' in the name, and their desire to evangelize. Somehow I don't think they would feel any better knowing that just witnessing a drum corps show can be a religious experience. :lol: Get thee to a nunnery.

Back when I marched, the California schools I attended did not start until the Wednesday after Labor Day. That doesn't exist anymore. California schools, as I now know it, all start in mid August. Factor in the universities, which have schedules unto themselves, and this entire thread becomes meaningless. If DCI used the old schedule, conflicts would increase by geometrical proportions.

'74 was my first year in drum corps. I had zero expectations as I was very naive. I assumed it was normal to compete at DCI and be up against other corps we had not seen before, as there were several new competing corps for Blue Devils. I believe Muchachoes, Kingsmen, and Troopers were all new to our mix. The mind may be going here, but this is what I remember. After we performed in finals, and since we placed eleventh in prelims and were on early, we were allowed into the stadium to watch other corps, and were not restricted to the back side. We were given a set time we needed to leave the stadium to prepare for retreat. I therefore got to witness at least part of the Muchachoes show and crowd response, and it seemed like the majority of the folks sitting in the Cornell stadium were there for the Muchachoes home show. The only time I have ever seen a crowd respond anything like what I saw that night, was for an Oakland Raiders home game. It was controlled pandemonium without the cheerleaders. I, at 16 years of age, was fully blown away by this. With no prior exposure to DCI finals, nor what a normal crowd response would be for such a performance, fully could not comprehend what I was seeing. and more to the point, hearing. Prior to this night, I greatly enjoyed the competitive nature of drum corps, but from that night forward, I understood the 'rock star' possibilities of what we were doing. And for those of you who were part of the Muchachoes, '75 was even better. There are those that speak kindly of the Blue Devils '76 show, and even I look back with favor on that year, but I can't recall the Blue Devils ever bringing home the bacon the way it was done by that group from Hawthorne.

I thank LancerLegend for stating a desire to march the '76 Blue Devil show. I'd like to do that one again too. I still remember much of the book, and would only want to do it on a piston rotor horn. Yep, I'm a dinosaur. '75 Madison would but lots of fun too, as would '75 Muchachoes. Put me in the place of the over aged dude(s). I was only 17 that summer. And as a throwback to LancerLegend, the one show I would like to go back to most, would be '94 27th Lancers. Edit: Just after I posted this, I find a couple more additions for '76 Blue Devils. I thank you all.

I had the misfortune of viewing quarter finals in the theater in Dublin, CA. The video started fine, and on time, but there was zero audio for a full 40 minutes. Total silence. The sound finally came on just prior to the start of The Colts. I so wanted to hear the Madison show. Sorry guys. It wasn't my fault. I am quite pleased with the results of the show, just very angry that with only one shot to see and hear this stuff, the Regal Theater had to mess things up. Mental note to self: Next year go to a different theater.

My first year in drum corps was '74. We used the piston rotor horns and came on the field from the back sideline. My last year in drum corps was '77. We used the piston rotor horns (sopranos may have been 2 valve) and came on the field from the back sideline. There was no pit. The tymps were carried, and there were only 2 mallet instruments, also carried. The biggest change that I was aware of, and it was the Blue Devils that helped do it, was the jazz. We may not have been the first, but....... None of that has anything to do with rules however. I do remember the 2 valves were phased in over several years, so corps would not have to eat the cost all at once. When did the pit start? No clue.

I am humbled. 2 of the first 5 posts mention shows I performed. Ain't that a kick? My choices are different however. The first show that comes to my mind, based on my marching years is '75 Madison. The first show that comes to mind, based on the full history of drum corps as I know it, is the '94 27th Lancers Alumni. Enough said.

In February of '76 I had my first knee surgery. Free floating cartiledge removed, holes drilled in the bone allowing the marrow to bleed and form new stuff. Got a ring that summer. In March of '77 I had the other knee done. Same excercise and second ring. Based on my age, I could have marched two more years. Due to physical pain, I did not.

First off, in my years, we had no food wagon. It was extremely rare that we would ever have a cooked breakfast. The support group would often find a store to get a substantial amount of milk, and enough boxes of cold cereal to stock a 7-11. The other drink of the day was a large cooler of Tang. If we had a long travel day (actually driving during daylight hours) each bus was given a supply of bread loaves, PB&J, more Tang, and possibly enough fresh fruit for each person to have one apple, banana, or orange Ocasionally we would have some kind of lunch meat, usually bologna with mayo. The bus mom on my bus, the late Joanie Doebler, would craft about 40+ sandwiches and they were passed down the aisle for all. If it was a lunch meat day, she actually tried to accomodate requests for mayo, mustard and ketchup (good lady). If daylight hours were used for rehearsal, the lunches weren't much different, except that we made our own sandwiches, and filled our own cups with Tang. We might also find a number of bags of chips to choose from. There were some occasions, where we were travelling during the day, and we needed to travel thru whatever dinner time frame was available. We would pull into some small 3-4 fast food small town exit. Jerry Seawright would hand each member $3.00 or so as we got off the bus, and we had a half hour or so to visit the half star establishment of choice and be back on the bus. The employees behind the counters of those places never knew what hit them. The tornado was on them and gone before they could blink. I can also remember times when the bus moms would find some form of cooking equipment. They would pull out a huge pot stored under the bus and try to cook on a small camp stove or some such creation. Try cooking spaghetti for over 130 hungry people in such a situation. It isn't easy. Lumpy spaghetti took on real meaning for such meals. Love the bus moms though. They did what they could. In one year, Blue Devils had Otto. We lived like gods. Otto pulled his own trailer which was laden with cooking equipment, such as 55 gallon drums cut in two and converted to portable BBQ pits. Otto was feeding us the likes of BBQ oysters on the half shell and other such drum corps unheard of wonders. Sad that we only had Otto for one tour. But oh, is he remembered even today. Someone above mentioned facilities on the bus. We had unreliable air conditioning on the buses. You never knew if we would have it or not. I don't recall if any of the busses had bathrooms. Mine did not. If there was a bathroom, we couldn't use it. Rest areas were half hour affairs, so were only used if we really had the time to spare, and how often does that ever happen for a drum corps? In short, I'm glad that corps of today have the food trucks (or catering facilities). The closest I ever came to that was Otto. You young'uns have it good.

I don't know if this is what I would call awkward, or if it really belongs in a thread of 'What happens on the bus, stays on the bus'. Toledo Ohio, 1974 for Key to the Sea. My rookie year in drum corps. Rehearsal gets a break when a very sudden downpour soaks us all. I pull some dry clothes out and head for the locker room for a shower and change. Several minutes later there are four baritone players standing outside the showers drying off when the locker room door opens with a BANG! Many of the drum line are 'escorting' a young lady from the color guard (J.M.) into to ranks of the 'Towel Brigade'. The young lady is pretending not to look, but is obviously enjoying her adventure. Seeing as the drum line has made their deposit and completed their intended task, releasing her from captivity, I choose to drop my towel and escort our guest into the showers. This young lady was even wetter than anything the downpour did to her earlier. She ran out of the locker room quickly, pretending to be upset, but it was obvious then, as well as later, that she had a good time. But the fun was not over. There was some degree of competition between the horn line and drum line, and I can only imagine the drum line felt the horns had the better fun with that event. As I walked out of the locker room, clean and dry, I'm jumped by at least 6-8 of the drum line and carried outside into the rain once again. In addition, being held by the hands and feet, I'm repeatedly dragged thru a mud puddle. Back to the showers once again. This time there was no visitor from the guard. How unfortunate.

Revert you say? I would revert all of these back to the '70s: 27th Lancers Muchachoes Bridgemen Purple Lancers Belleville Black Nights Blue Rock Commodores Kingsmen Velvet Knights Argonne Rebels Kilties Blue Stars Oaklands Freelancers and oh so many others, so many..........

Has it died? Or is there this tumor that just keeps growing?

No, no. Pitch is what you do in baseball. We colonists also don't use prams nor parasols. Our cars do not have sumps nor bonnets. Then again I've heard the Brits also celebrate the 4th of July, only they call it Thanksgiving. Touche'.