84BDsop Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 (edited) I finished high school obsessed with drum corps (the bando kid), but had never been to a live show. A buddy of mine freshmen year of college talked me into learning brass with him so we could drive to camps together.8 months later, I was at my first show in Stockton. Now comes one of the more embarrassing stories of my youth.... ....we're getting ready to go on, and we're lined up, parade rest and not moving kind of thing. Esperanza was on at the time, and from the side I caught my first glimpse of drum corps, EVER! Well I just about flipped. I started whispering to people "Dude, dude look! It's a drum corps" completely oblivious at this point to the fact that I'm about to compete against them. So I get yelled at to get back in line by a bunch of vets, and it clicks in my head what I'm doing. I go back to parade rest for about 3 seconds, and right then I hear about 5 feet to my left...."Santa Clara! Feathers UP!" So I of course turn around, and there, not 5 feet away is the Santa Clara Vanguard. I literally started jumping up and down, grabbing people around me "Dude! Dude!!!!! It's the Santa Clara Vanguard! Look!!!" It didn't matter how many vets yelled at me...there I was, full uniform, jumping and screaming DURING Esperanza's performance and I was grabbing everyone to see this amazing thing I'd discovered. I got chewed out pretty good after that, and by the second show I was good to go. So in retrospect, maybe I should have gone to a show and got that out of my system BEFORE my first performance. Oh well, live and learn. Wow.....that SO beats ANYTHING I did as a rook! I'm certain Stuart is STILL trying to forget you!! Edited August 28, 2008 by 84BDsop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigSnareline Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 1979, Denver Co. Drums Along The Rockies. I'm too lazy to look up all the corps that were there. Lets see... Spirit of Atlanta - and that ###### hornline Santa Clara Vanguard - and that killer drumline Madison Scouts North Star - and the Chrome Wall - better than SCV that year in my book Crossmen Blue Stars Sky Ryders Velvet Knights Florida Vanguard I was hooked - vowed to march - did from 82-84. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanAndreasen Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 1983 Key to the Sea. Stellar show. All the big corps. Saw the Bridgemen and Garfield's z-pull and that was it... I was hooked. I also met my future wife on that trip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Boo Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 My first show was at the Momence (IL) Gladiolus Festival, about 60 miles south of Chicago's Loop and 25 miles south of where I grew up. My parents took me to Gladiolus Parade in 1972 and Cavaliers were there. I begged my dad to take me back for the show at night because people next to us at the parade were talking about it. I was totally surprised by what I witnessed. The Cavaliers won the show and Belleville Black Knights were second. Three years later, my best college friend dragged me to a Cavaliers rehearsal and I joined that night. My first show as a marcher was the second show I ever witnessed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taters Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 Very First "REAL" Drum Corps show was 1978 in Syracuse new York... I saw the Syracuse Brigadiers, Hawthorne Cabelleros, and the Buccaneers from Reading, PA the next summer my family relocated to Concord, CA of all places. That summer I saw SCV and BD for the first time ever. The rest they say is history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_S Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 My first show wasn't even a competition. Junior year of high school, our band visited a Blue Devils practice when they were in town. We practiced visual basics with them, and all of the guys looked 30 years old to me. Later that night we watched the stage show that they performed that year, and I was hooked. I bought my first drum corps CD at that show, the Championship Years collection, which back then ended at 1997. I followed the 1999 results for the rest of the year, even got a group together to watch the PBS broadcast at my place. I remember hating SCV for tying the only corps I really knew at that point; oh how foolish I was! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlooContraGuy Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 My first Drum Corps show was the Normal, Ill. show in 2005. I remember watching the Bluecoats and being supremely impressed by how they gripped the crowd like no one else that night. The Cavaliers and Madison were there as well, but neither of them stood out to me the way Bloo did. The same thing in '06... and now I am extremely proud to call myself a Bluecoat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hrnguy500 Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 First time seeing DCI: 1995 PBS broadcast on Thanksgiving. Madison Scouts and Phantom Regiment were most memorable. I thought it was so cool that "marching band" (I didn't know any better) was on TV First live show: 2002 BOA Summer Symposium at Bloomington. Glassmen, Pioneer, Troop?, Cavaliers and Phantom were all there. May have forgoten some others First marched show: Mankato, MN 2004. Technically my "home show" since it was the closest I would be to my home town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willie85 Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 (edited) Momence, Illinois, 1978 - the summer after my freshman year of high school. It was "just" a late season, small town, Class A show with rickety wooden stands and a carnaval going on in the backround, but I didn't know that and was totally blown away by likes of the Vaqueros, the Black Knights, Pioneer, the Emerald Knights, and, the corps that ended up winning, the Geneseo Knights. After that, I was just a kid in search of a local corps to join. It wasn't til two years later that I spotted a girl wearing a corps jacket in the high school cafeteria - I think I attended my first rehearsal with the Illiana Lancers later that week. The first show I performed in with the Lancers, competing against that same bunch of Class A corps I first saw in Momence, was also won by the Knights. During my four years with the Lancers, the Geneseo Knights were steadily improving, the their run at the top 12 in 1983 was just about the most exciting thing imaginable to a small corps kid like me. Cavies, Regiment, probably even Madison were closer geographically, but the Knights was where I wanted to be and joined them for the 1984 season. I marched my two final years with them, and, as it turned out, one of my last regular shows before finals week in Madison in 1985 was Momence, won that year, by the way, by the Knights. Edited August 28, 2008 by Willie85 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mn trumpter guy Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 Canton Ohio 2007- middle of my first drum corps season marching. There aren't many drum corps shows in MN, and none were advertised at my high school... I was a fan of the videos I could watch online, and the DVD's other people had. Blue coats blew me away, along with all the other corps that I saw, but mostly I just remember rocking out to their show... good year, good show, good start to what will probably be a life long love Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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