1973: Does it seem like the "Lost Year"?

[Kevlar496]

I remember 73' sorta. We stayed in dorms across the street from where the Blue Devils practiced. I was blown away just watching them rehearse and they didn't make finals. We walked around campus and found some other corps rehearsing, but don't really remember who they were. "The Thing" was massive. I remember them coming onto the field thinking, "where are they all coming from". Lightning stopped the Commodores prelims show, or maybe they finished and the contest was delayed. Saw an old man get knocked down by a baritone player (don't remember which corps) for trying to break ranks during a trip to the concessions. Loved Black Knights "The Impossible Dream", Troopers sunburst, SCV running down the hill because they were late, and thinking they will never win now and then they blew my away. Oh, and I had a relapse of mono and spent 6 days in the hospital after we got back home. What a great time that was.

[Tansea]

1973 was my first year marching in a "real" drum corps. I was 13 and marching in the Santa Clara Vanguard, I had no clue the effect that show would have on drum corps and the way it was played for quite some time. All I knew was it was one of the most exciting times of my life - I have to say number three; marriage to my soulmate, birth of my son...and 1973.

I don't remember much from the party after DCI, does that count as a lost memory?

[Jim Anello]

Lightning stopped the Commodores prelims show, or maybe they finished and the contest was delayed.

You're half right. A huge lightening bolt went off with a loud clap of thunder seconds into Stockton's prelim performance. A judge tried to wave the corps off the field, but they kept right on coming with "Russian Sailor's Dance." As I recall it, the crowd went bonkers! Stockton's concert began with "Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down." A good choice given the weather conditions.

I don't know if people nowadays can appreciate just how many corps were packed into the little town of Whitewater. Each night I'd pack a cooler of beer and go window shoping. On campus, there were a series of football fields laid out next to each other. Hawthorne would do a run through, we'd walk 50 yards, and there would be Blue Stars. Then, we'd travel out to Whitewater High School to watch Argonne do a run through (what a horn line!!!), Finleyville, and this obscure corps from Concord we hadn't seen before, but looked an awful lot like Anaheim. Little did we know we were seeing history in the making.

Gosh, those were great times!

[ilmike]

Here is the pin DCI gave out that year to all participants:

[byline]

Not only was '73 the first year we played YPG, basically ending the "Color Pre" portion of the show from then on, but it was the first year the rifle line did the "Bottle Dance". And that tid-bit is something that alot of "Historical" statements that are in circulation keep getting wrong.

Yup, we dissected this chronology a few years back over on RAMD (gosh, this is from almost five years ago, back when I was actually still posting on RAMD). Maggie, I believe you're the one I'm quoting in this post:

1977 DVD

<snip>

An additional comment: prior to 1978, the rifle line performed the "Bottle Dance" several years. I *think*--but would be happy to be corrected on this if I'm wrong--the years were 1973, 1974 and 1975.

According to a past discussion here on RAMD, the corps played the music from the "Bottle Dance" in '72, but the rifle line didn't do the actual choreography till the following year. Another poster, Maggie, who marched Santa Clara's guard those years, said the flag line did an approximation of the dance in 1972. As she described it, "The flag line took their poles and raised them up slowly and back behind our necks to the shoulders as the crescendo built. Then as the main part of the "dance" began we did a one and count to one knee and then a one and count back up then back down again etc."

Just a bit of drum corps trivia. . . .

Sue

Edited July 17, 2007 by byline

[Tansea]

Here is the pin DCI gave out that year to all participants:

I didn't get one!!!

[LancerLegend]

Here is the pin DCI gave out that year to all participants:

I would never have believed it unless you showed this button. I never got one, and I know kids (old men and women now) that marched with diff corps - I don't know anyone that got that button.

I do, however, have a medal from the Kentucky Bluegrass Nationals.

[Rocketman]

On the Senior side, and I am by no means a historian, I guess you could say it was a "down" year especially considering how great the previous season was. It was pretty much the Cabs and the rest of the field whereas in 72, the top 5 all had a shot. It was my first year marching (senior corps) and I loved it, even though for my corps (Pittsburgh Rockets) it turned out to be their last.

:P

RM -

ampssuck

[lp1955]

Here is the pin DCI gave out that year to all participants:

I never got one eather

[Walter]

You talk about 1973 being a lost year in drum corps, well, for the Dutch Boy Cadets of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada it was a very sad year.

Our horn instructor, Michael Schuster, 29, was killed in a car accident in October of 1973. We were going to Germany in 1974 and he was looking forward to it. He was going to meet family he hadn't seen in a number of years.

Quote from Mike "If I were your age, I would love to be a Dutch Boy Cadet"

RIP Mike

:angel:

Edited July 18, 2007 by ODBC