How to steal a show...and go back in time

[wishbonecav]

What is it about these alumni corps that so deeply captures the imagination? If you've seen it first-hand, you know it's DIFFERENT.

27th in Boston got the single biggest response I have ever seen at any drum corps event ever, ever, ever.

I have never, EVER, seen as much fist pumping, clapping, standing screaming and yelling in one audience as I saw there that night. People were crying.

At a drum corps show.

Yes.

They were.

Ask anyone.

Royalaires took the field in Arlington Heights and, following Cavaliers and Garfield, got the wildest, most sustained and emotionally connected response I'd seen since that Two-Seven performance 10 years earlier. It was absolute insanity. And it went on and on and ON!

St Joe's of Batavia, JUST THIS YEAR, and with only about 30 horns in Buffalo, NY, average age of 58, followed Vanguard (VANGUARD!), siezed the front sideline and turned the crowd at UB Stadium on its freakin' head.

IF YOU WERE THERE, YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! The audience simply did not want them to stop.

What was going on? Didn't the crowd just see the most trained, most athletic, most artistic groups in the world? Didn't they just give a standing response to an phenominal display of modern drum corps? Absolutely, they did.

But for St. Joe's it was DIFFERENT!

Encore! Encore! They yelled.

They pleaded.

The audience literally extended their arms and reached for the corps.

And the corps, like a family member, like a piece of their flesh, kept reaching back...

...back to tradition,

...back to friendships,

...back to a time gone by when they all, too, could play and march, laugh and learn and love.

Watching St. Joe's was like being in a time machine. And it brought you back to one of the best times of your life...before the jobs and the kids...before some of the hard stuff.

No wonder we clapped so long and so loud.

For a couple of glorious minutes, watching St Joes and 27 and Chicago...we got to be kids again. :)

[KeithHall]

I think John D should hire you for DCP and the same with Steve Vickers for DCW. You, my friend, are one fine writer.

What is it about these alumni corps that so deeply captures the imagination? If you've seen it first-hand, you know it's DIFFERENT.

27th in Boston got the single biggest response I have ever seen at any drum corps event ever, ever, ever.

I have never, EVER, seen as much fist pumping, clapping, standing screaming and yelling in one audience as I saw there that night. People were crying.

At a drum corps show.

Yes.

They were.

Ask anyone.

Royalaires took the field in Arlington Heights and, following Cavaliers and Garfield, got the wildest, most sustained and emotionally connected response I'd seen since that Two-Seven performance 10 years earlier. It was absolute insanity. And it went on and on and ON!

St Joe's of Batavia, JUST THIS YEAR, and with only about 30 horns in Buffalo, NY, average age of 58, followed Vanguard (VANGUARD!), siezed the front sideline and turned the crowd at UB Stadium on its freakin' head.

IF YOU WERE THERE, YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! The audience simply did not want them to stop.

What was going on? Didn't the crowd just see the most trained, most athletic, most artistic groups in the world? Didn't they just give a standing response to an phenominal display of modern drum corps? Absolutely, they did.

But for St. Joe's it was DIFFERENT!

Encore! Encore! They yelled.

They pleaded.

The audience literally extended their arms and reached for the corps.

And the corps, like a family member, like a piece of their flesh, kept reaching back...

...back to tradition,

...back to friendships,

...back to a time gone by when they all, too, could play and march, laugh and learn and love.

Watching St. Joe's was like being in a time machine. And it brought you back to one of the best times of your life...before the jobs and the kids...before some of the hard stuff.

No wonder we clapped so long and so loud.

For a couple of glorious minutes, watching St Joes and 27 and Chicago...we got to be kids again. :)

[Mickk3]

copy of a note sent to the Anaheim Kingsmen -

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My intent was to leave directly after the last semi-finals corps had left the field. I’d catch the last scores online, I thought, because I didn’t want to see Anaheim Kingsmen Alumni Corps. It had been years, decades really, since I’d been to a drum corps show and I didn’t want to see my childhood dream, my childhood idols, make fools of themselves as a reminiscing crowd applauded only because they were supposed to. It was almost like when you find out a loved one has a terminal illness, you want to remember them healthy: dignified. In short, I felt there was too much at stake.

I wasn't yet a teeneager when I first saw the Kingsmen. The ‘a class’ corps I had lied to get into was given back-field tickets to the U.S. Open finals. I was a little tyke then, so I couldn’t see ‘Anaheim’ taking their position on the side-line until one of the older guys in the corps folded his ‘Mark Twain Cadets’ jacket for me to sit on. It was nighttime. The stadium lights were on. Systematically, the chattering around me lessened and all heads were pointed toward the end-line. I looked over and saw the Anaheim Kingsmen in majestic blue and black uniforms superimposed against the night sky. To me, each end every member of that corps was the exact same height, and that height looked to be 7 feet tall. No one flinched a muscle. Their spacing appeared machine generated. I knew then, as young as I was, that something special was about to happen.

I was making my way out through the tunnel of the Rose Bowl when my phone rang. It was my long-time drum corp friend, Anna Carey calling from Seattle. She couldn’t wait until her flight landed the next day for the scores. I filled her in on what I knew then at the end of the conversation she asked if I remembered to thank her friend Tim for arranging the tickets. I stopped dead in my tracks because I hadn’t.

I’d like to tell you that Mick-the-child remembered every sound and movement of the Kingsmen Marion Ohio show, but I didn’t. Candidly, it was too much for my juvenile mind to process. I would see or hear something that led my thoughts to wonder to ‘how’d they do that?’, but before I conjured an answer, 'What the...?', they do something else to stupefy me. I remember well their concert piece, because somehow, and without knowing, I had made it down from the stands to the back-field line. Their backs were facing me and there was an arc of colorguard performing. The accomplishment and beauty of it made me cry.

I followed you Kingsmen that night, along with dozens of others, just to be near you. At that young age, I for the first time in my life saw, I FELT, what the word ‘dignity’ meant.

While making small-talk with Tim, I was careful to keep my back to the field and my mind on the conversation. I knew I was going to have to look at my fallen idols on my way our but I wanted that memory to hold a little impact as possible. Tim and I said our so-longs and I turned around to go.

Dear Kingsmen - please forgive me for underestimating you. Before that moment, I had envisioned 17 horn players, 2 or 3 sad snares, and a handful flag-bearers who occasionally would have a fumbling whack at rifles.

*************** *cough* NOTTHECASE *cough* ****************

What I saw, you well know. I saw 260 or so seven feet tall men and women in regal blue and black uniforms superimposed against the night sky. I saw a show that swelled my heart, that made me smile, and cry.

Decades after the first time, I followed you as far as my old pride would allow me to. I stood behind the rope and watched you march, in formation, unflinching, back to your post. I could not help calling out ‘Thank you!’ every once in a while. You reminded me about dignity.

thank you.

[KeithHall]

WOW!

I was 12 years old when I saw Anaheim at the US Open too. It was great to see them but along with them were Blue Rock, Racine Scouts, Des Plaines Vanguard and others. Gee, it was a time I will never forget. Sitting for Open class prelims all day and enjoying every single corps and then A class and Open class finals at night.

Where did you go Marion, Ohio Home of the US Open Junior Drum and Bugle Corps Championships?

copy of a note sent to the Anaheim Kingsmen -

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My intent was to leave directly after the last semi-finals corps had left the field. I’d catch the last scores online, I thought, because I didn’t want to see Anaheim Kingsmen Alumni Corps. It had been years, decades really, since I’d been to a drum corps show and I didn’t want to see my childhood dream, my childhood idols, make fools of themselves as a reminiscing crowd applauded only because they were supposed to. It was almost like when you find out a loved one has a terminal illness, you want to remember them healthy: dignified. In short, I felt there was too much at stake.

I wasn't yet a teeneager when I first saw the Kingsmen. The ‘a class’ corps I had lied to get into was given back-field tickets to the U.S. Open finals. I was a little tyke then, so I couldn’t see ‘Anaheim’ taking their position on the side-line until one of the older guys in the corps folded his ‘Mark Twain Cadets’ jacket for me to sit on. It was nighttime. The stadium lights were on. Systematically, the chattering around me lessened and all heads were pointed toward the end-line. I looked over and saw the Anaheim Kingsmen in majestic blue and black uniforms superimposed against the night sky. To me, each end every member of that corps was the exact same height, and that height looked to be 7 feet tall. No one flinched a muscle. Their spacing appeared machine generated. I knew then, as young as I was, that something special was about to happen.

I was making my way out through the tunnel of the Rose Bowl when my phone rang. It was my long-time drum corp friend, Anna Carey calling from Seattle. She couldn’t wait until her flight landed the next day for the scores. I filled her in on what I knew then at the end of the conversation she asked if I remembered to thank her friend Tim for arranging the tickets. I stopped dead in my tracks because I hadn’t.

I’d like to tell you that Mick-the-child remembered every sound and movement of the Kingsmen Marion Ohio show, but I didn’t. Candidly, it was too much for my juvenile mind to process. I would see or hear something that led my thoughts to wonder to ‘how’d they do that?’, but before I conjured an answer, 'What the...?', they do something else to stupefy me. I remember well their concert piece, because somehow, and without knowing, I had made it down from the stands to the back-field line. Their backs were facing me and there was an arc of colorguard performing. The accomplishment and beauty of it made me cry.

I followed you Kingsmen that night, along with dozens of others, just to be near you. At that young age, I for the first time in my life saw, I FELT, what the word ‘dignity’ meant.

While making small-talk with Tim, I was careful to keep my back to the field and my mind on the conversation. I knew I was going to have to look at my fallen idols on my way our but I wanted that memory to hold a little impact as possible. Tim and I said our so-longs and I turned around to go.

Dear Kingsmen - please forgive me for underestimating you. Before that moment, I had envisioned 17 horn players, 2 or 3 sad snares, and a handful flag-bearers who occasionally would have a fumbling whack at rifles.

*************** *cough* NOTTHECASE *cough* ****************

What I saw, you well know. I saw 260 or so seven feet tall men and women in regal blue and black uniforms superimposed against the night sky. I saw a show that swelled my heart, that made me smile, and cry.

Decades after the first time, I followed you as far as my old pride would allow me to. I stood behind the rope and watched you march, in formation, unflinching, back to your post. I could not help calling out ‘Thank you!’ every once in a while. You reminded me about dignity.

thank you.

[Mickk3]

Marion, Ohio Home of the US Open Junior Drum and Bugle Corps Championships?

yup.

[MSJ Snare]

What is it about these alumni corps that so deeply captures the imagination? If you've seen it first-hand, you know it's DIFFERENT.

27th in Boston got the single biggest response I have ever seen at any drum corps event ever, ever, ever.

I have never, EVER, seen as much fist pumping, clapping, standing screaming and yelling in one audience as I saw there that night. People were crying.

At a drum corps show.

Yes.

They were.

Ask anyone.

Royalaires took the field in Arlington Heights and, following Cavaliers and Garfield, got the wildest, most sustained and emotionally connected response I'd seen since that Two-Seven performance 10 years earlier. It was absolute insanity. And it went on and on and ON!

St Joe's of Batavia, JUST THIS YEAR, and with only about 30 horns in Buffalo, NY, average age of 58, followed Vanguard (VANGUARD!), siezed the front sideline and turned the crowd at UB Stadium on its freakin' head.

IF YOU WERE THERE, YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! The audience simply did not want them to stop.

What was going on? Didn't the crowd just see the most trained, most athletic, most artistic groups in the world? Didn't they just give a standing response to an phenominal display of modern drum corps? Absolutely, they did.

But for St. Joe's it was DIFFERENT!

Encore! Encore! They yelled.

They pleaded.

The audience literally extended their arms and reached for the corps.

And the corps, like a family member, like a piece of their flesh, kept reaching back...

...back to tradition,

...back to friendships,

...back to a time gone by when they all, too, could play and march, laugh and learn and love.

Watching St. Joe's was like being in a time machine. And it brought you back to one of the best times of your life...before the jobs and the kids...before some of the hard stuff.

No wonder we clapped so long and so loud.

For a couple of glorious minutes, watching St Joes and 27 and Chicago...we got to be kids again. :)

From all of us at Mighty St. Joe's (LeRoy NY now - just down the road from Batavia) 'Thank You' so much for your kind words and overwhelming thoughts. As a corps we thought that Buffalo was one of our finest moments of 2007. I'm sure you've been there but let me say it again, what a rush it is to have the audience so excited about what we truly love to do, entertain them. And I can honestly say for myself for those few moments that we are on the field it is the best spent energy you can imagine. Thank You again to ALL of the fans, fellow drum corps members and new comers that come out to watch us perform.

[Mickk3]

was the St. Joe's show recorded? is it on YouTube?

anyone anyone???

[markdewine]

Ya know what I HATE about alumni shows?

The next day, I've lost my voice (from all the screaming and cheering). And my hands are sore for two or three days (from clapping so long, and so hard).

Now, here's what I LIKE about alumni shows.

EVERYTHING!

[Donny Drum Corps]

That Buffalo show was recorded and shown on the local cable channel. I am not sure of the call letters...they do it every year for shows in the area. And then they play it numerous times on cable.

But Thanks Joe anyway...it was fun. I flew back from tour to DM that show and ran into all of the same corps I had been competing against on tour for the last month.

We followed SCV, who at that point of the season wasnt quite ready yet. But it did seem that with 30 something horns, we were able to get a good reaction from the crowd that just saw some fine DCI corps. We definitely blew the horns!!! LOL...

DA