Drum Corps Bloopers!

[GeorgeHester]

One that's out on YouTube somewhere... 2006 Cavaliers in their victory performance, one of the tenor players totaled his carrier on the last note of the drum break. The video is right on him too as they are jammin' at the end there and then "wham!" the carrier snapped or something. I never confirmed if the guy ended up just carrying them by hand for the rest of the show but it's both funny and unfortunate. At least it didn't happen the previous performance. :)

[doogiempt]

Have a bunch from my years marching...probably can't remember them all, but I'll try...

2000 - Rehearsal in Bristol, RI - We're working on the new drill we just changed in Clocks. Im facing backfield moving towards the front-sideline. The tenors (who pass inbetween me and the guy next to me) are facing front field moving towards the back-sideline. Both myself and the back tenor were not exactly headed the right way since we had JUST learned this drill and were trying it with equipment for one of the first times, so i ran into him. I go down, as well as the entire tenor line on top of me. Kinda hurt.

2001 - San Antonio - After the small group in YPG during the little drum break, the baritones are in a curve on the right side of the field. We're all backing up into a triangle thing and one of the guys goes down. Well, since we're all backing up, he takes about 6-7 others down with him. I can't remember if they all got up in time for our little feature or not!

- Rehearsal in California - We're doing a run-through on a rehearsal day. In Moondance when the snares are backing up and turning around for the big drum feature, the snare closest to the sideline trips and falls and takes down about half the snare line with him. A few of the actually snares were broken pretty badly, and at least one member was hurt to a small extent. I dont think we ended up finishing the run-through that day because of it.

2002 - Rehearsal then show in Murfreesboro, TN - This was the year of having that "Monument" on the left side of the field. In reality, it was basically just a giant sponge painted to look like cement. Well, we had learned new drill and staging to Boogie Woogie a day or so before the Murfreesboro show, but never did the new drill with "Sponge-Bob" (as we called it) until the actual show. None of the staff (nor the members) thought that the new drill might come close to the monument. It did. So, in the show, half the trumpet line (or maybe mellos?) starts running into this thing because their drill goes right through it!

2003 - Spring Training - There was an old visual ending to Fanfare and Allegro that nobody ever saw because it was only in for 1 day. The drill was very similar to the ending of Cadets show this year (2008), but a lot closer (aka, smaller intervals). We spent all day trying to learn this and make it work. But, by the end of the day when almost all of the hornline had fallen multiple times and some horns had been all but destroyed, they decided to take it out and put in the ending that's on the videos.

2005 - All season - People ran into that d*** door all the time.

2006 - Random show, mid-season - The drum break in Velvet Pants fell TOTALLY apart. As in, the snares were 2 counts ahead of the rest of the drumline, the pit was 4 counts behind, the DM (as well as the rest of us) couldn't find a single downbeat to save our lives. It never really came back together until a little ways into the ballad. Somehow (even with Phantom at the show), we still won the show AND drums...go figure.

- All season - Plenty of people were falling off of those benches all year. As well, those people who did jump off the bench sometimes were not caught by the people on the ground! It was not a pretty sight when we first started learning it all.

That's all I can really think of for now...

Michael Terry

Cadets baritone 2000-2007

Edited August 28, 2008 by doogiempt

[cjw5168]

Well this is more of an obvious one....I think

'04 Blue Devils.

When they changed their field exit for finals night. They moved the whole corps like a train off the field and into the tunnel. From what I heard a tenor player totally bit it right in the endzone. Luckily he was like 2nd to last so it wasn't a total disaster. I think he managed to stay on his knees so it was a pretty good save. I've tried watching it on the DVD but its hard to see.

Nope he was IN FRONT of the other three. He hit his knees and swiveled around right out of ther way and got up behind them and kept going. If you put the DVD on percusion cam you'll see it perfectly.

Yeah I'm pretty sure that was Tim Jackson

[traveller30]

Yeah I'm pretty sure that was Tim Jackson

Pete Lucero, not Tim.

[kac]

Biggest blooper performance I've experienced during a show was when the drum major forgot to conduct approx 2 min of our show and moved right on to the ballad, skipping an entire segment of the show.

We had scatter drill written in at the end of that missing segment going into the ballad, so we scattered to the beginning of the ballad once we realized he was conducting the wrong song......our reaction on the field was classic- "omg what do we do?!!!!? He's playing the wrong song!!!! effing run!!! RUN!!!!!!!" with nearly every guard member yelling "RUN!!!!!" to the people near them.

And somehow we pulled it off! We didn't get a timing penalty as the show was still a few seconds over the minimum time.

The crowd had no idea that anything was missing, and IIRC, we also won that show.

I can think of others, but they all pale in comparison to this one.

[Perry S]

Pete Lucero, not Tim.

He did a GREAT job not causing a pile-up. Very heads up and good hustle.

[G-Rott]

In 1991, I was in the SCV pit. We had our 2nd or 3rd show of the year at Diablo Jr College on Concord. This is BD's "home" show. Well its always very windy there at night for that show. I was the pit member that played the first "bomb" of the closer, The Fall of Saigon. Pearl had this stupid concert bass drum stand where the shell just sat on a pedestal. There was nothing secure about it to anchor the drum to the stand. I was pretty excited about our closer that year which was particularly full of percussion. However, when I hit the bass drum it popped up in the air and the 25 mile an hour wind carried it on to the field. And it just kept rolling. It went a good 10 or 15 yards onto the field through a bunch of crawling and running guard and horn members depicting the "war" section. I had to run on and get it before someone ran over it. I remember looking across the pit where the other bombs were still going off and back up at the drum major, who clearly had a look of confusion in his eyes.

I guess that was the only time I technically "took the field".

My personal opinion? This is definitely the funniest blooper yet...

[84BDsop]

Have a bunch from my years marching...probably can't remember them all, but I'll try...

2000 - Rehearsal in Bristol, RI - We're working on the new drill we just changed in Clocks. Im facing backfield moving towards the front-sideline. The tenors (who pass inbetween me and the guy next to me) are facing front field moving towards the back-sideline. Both myself and the back tenor were not exactly headed the right way since we had JUST learned this drill and were trying it with equipment for one of the first times, so i ran into him. I go down, as well as the entire tenor line on top of me. Kinda hurt.

2001 - San Antonio - After the small group in YPG during the little drum break, the baritones are in a curve on the right side of the field. We're all backing up into a triangle thing and one of the guys goes down. Well, since we're all backing up, he takes about 6-7 others down with him. I can't remember if they all got up in time for our little feature or not!

- Rehearsal in California - We're doing a run-through on a rehearsal day. In Moondance when the snares are backing up and turning around for the big drum feature, the snare closest to the sideline trips and falls and takes down about half the snare line with him. A few of the actually snares were broken pretty badly, and at least one member was hurt to a small extent. I dont think we ended up finishing the run-through that day because of it.

2002 - Rehearsal then show in Murfreesboro, TN - This was the year of having that "Monument" on the left side of the field. In reality, it was basically just a giant sponge painted to look like cement. Well, we had learned new drill and staging to Boogie Woogie a day or so before the Murfreesboro show, but never did the new drill with "Sponge-Bob" (as we called it) until the actual show. None of the staff (nor the members) thought that the new drill might come close to the monument. It did. So, in the show, half the trumpet line (or maybe mellos?) starts running into this thing because their drill goes right through it!

2003 - Spring Training - There was an old visual ending to Fanfare and Allegro that nobody ever saw because it was only in for 1 day. The drill was very similar to the ending of Cadets show this year (2008), but a lot closer (aka, smaller intervals). We spent all day trying to learn this and make it work. But, by the end of the day when almost all of the hornline had fallen multiple times and some horns had been all but destroyed, they decided to take it out and put in the ending that's on the videos.

2005 - All season - People ran into that d*** door all the time.

2006 - Random show, mid-season - The drum break in Velvet Pants fell TOTALLY apart. As in, the snares were 2 counts ahead of the rest of the drumline, the pit was 4 counts behind, the DM (as well as the rest of us) couldn't find a single downbeat to save our lives. It never really came back together until a little ways into the ballad. Somehow (even with Phantom at the show), we still won the show AND drums...go figure.

- All season - Plenty of people were falling off of those benches all year. As well, those people who did jump off the bench sometimes were not caught by the people on the ground! It was not a pretty sight when we first started learning it all.

That's all I can really think of for now...

Michael Terry

Cadets baritone 2000-2007

Wow.....those make the infamous "Whitewater Wipeput" sound like a random occurance....who knew George was writing falls into every show??

[84BDsop]

Biggest blooper performance I've experienced during a show was when the drum major forgot to conduct approx 2 min of our show and moved right on to the ballad, skipping an entire segment of the show.

We had scatter drill written in at the end of that missing segment going into the ballad, so we scattered to the beginning of the ballad once we realized he was conducting the wrong song......our reaction on the field was classic- "omg what do we do?!!!!? He's playing the wrong song!!!! effing run!!! RUN!!!!!!!" with nearly every guard member yelling "RUN!!!!!" to the people near them.

And somehow we pulled it off! We didn't get a timing penalty as the show was still a few seconds over the minimum time.

The crowd had no idea that anything was missing, and IIRC, we also won that show.

I can think of others, but they all pale in comparison to this one.

Winner.....close the thread!

Wow....a GREAT example of the corps thinking as one!! Great save!

So.....did you let the DM live afterwards?

Something a little similar happened to me in Dream in 03...my first year on the podium....show was at Glendora....I think it was out 3rd show of the year, so things were still a little dicy.

We set up and I'm asked if the corps is ready....I do the salute and count off....not realizing that the guard was, in fact, NOT ready....I forgot if they were having troubles setting up or were just taking longer than usual....we had not run any practice setups to find any problems.

So I count off, the guard hauls MAJOR ### to get their gear and do the show....and I didn't know what had happened until after when ALL of them ganged up on me!

Have you ever seen Crunchy Tenor's wife ###### off? Trust me....you do NOT want to see it!

From then on, and all through 04, I would look to the guard captain during setup, and she'd give me a sign when they were ready....never happened again.

Edited August 28, 2008 by 84BDsop

[bluecoats88]

something similar happened to us in our first show in 1984.

It was our first performance after folding the previous year so the corps is like 98% rookies.

Our DM forgets to give the horn line a norns up at the beginning and just starts to direct the opener. Well the drum line doesn't know any better so we start the show. I'm pretty sure there was a 4 count drum intro, well after the 4 counts when we didn't hear any horns the drum line kinda started over and the horns having realized everything was starting kinda brought their horns up and joined in on the opener after the 2nd 4 count intro.

The next day at rehearsal the staff took all the horns up commands out of the show and just had the hornline bring their horns up during the silent 4 count the DM gives prior to a song.

We were all pretty happy that the opener didn't completely fall apart since like I said the corps was about 98% rookies and I'm sure the average age was probably in the 15-17 years old range.