1974 Pembroke Imperials

[Bob984]

Question.....I was scanning some old scores, and saw something really wild in 1974.....

Pembroke Imperials finished 3rd at World Open Prelims with an 82.5, only losing to Anaheim and the Muchachos, and beating Kilts, Blue Stars, Phantom, and Purple Lancers....all of whom would finish in DCI finals. Pembroke fell to 9th at WO finals, and came in 30th at DCI prelims with a 67.45 just one week later. Very wild results there......can anyone elaborate?

GB

[Drumss]

I was at that show, and seem to recall hearing that there was some sort of dispute among the judging organizations that were handling prelims vs. finals. The majority of prelim judges were supposedly from a local Mass. circuit, while the finals panel was a more national panel.

I think they may have gotten a special "local corps" bump from the prelims panel.

[up4479]

Question.....I was scanning some old scores, and saw something really wild in 1974.....

Pembroke Imperials finished 3rd at World Open Prelims with an 82.5, only losing to Anaheim and the Muchachos, and beating Kilts, Blue Stars, Phantom, and Purple Lancers....all of whom would finish in DCI finals. Pembroke fell to 9th at WO finals, and came in 30th at DCI prelims with a 67.45 just one week later. Very wild results there......can anyone elaborate?

GB

Welcome to old time drum corps. Even though DCI was established by then there was still a transition period between what was and what DCI wanted to be. Several things could account for these results which may seem odd today but actually were not that uncommon BITD. Without us being able to review the actual performances its possible the corps had a bad show or two. It could be they had one really great one. More likely is the judging. Back then it was not uncommon to have different judging panels from different sources between prelims and finals, especially at a show like the World Open. Most likely, local judges for prelims and "national" judges brought in from afar for finals. Each panel would set the norms for each show so that corps would be kept "in the ball park". With the way execution was judged back then a small, less talented corps could find themselves with zeros for all execution captions. That would not be good so there would be a general agreement that only say one in five errors would be marked for all corps in the show. That would skew the actual scores to the high end of the curve but would not result in total humiliation to the bottom corps. In prelims the norm would be looser than finals. In finals, judging would be more critical as the spread (both in talent or performance and in scores) between finalists would be narrower because the finalists were the cream of the crop for that particular show. This also meant that the corps had to really do the job or they'd get pushed back by those that did because of the narrower range of scores. Moving from a show like the 1974 World Open to DCI Nationals would mean a complete change of norms because there were a lot more corps at Nationals and DCI would bring in all the "national judges", the big guns if you will. There was a lot at stake for the corps especially the top 25 from the year before who of course were the only DCI member corps. There was real pressure to "make things happen" with the member corps or a judge or judges would get banned officially or unofficially. (Yes these things did happen over the years. My father was a corps director and was deeply involved behind the scene outside of our corps. His experience was not unique and many a judge form the old days left town in a hurry, never to be seen there again after not "playing ball".)

Of course, don't loose site of the fact that Pembroke was a New England powerhouse at the time but may have had issues the few times they went on the road as they did not regularly tour. Politics and a bad day could really kill a corps score.

IIRC prelim shows were at that point in time a full field show so that would not be a factor. DCI did away with the abbreviated field show for prelims in the early 70's. Before this rule change an abbreviated prelim show often had problems trying to mesh drill changes, timing, music and familiarity with the changes. Corps did not often need a prelim show and when they did they often didn't put in too much time perfecting it as it could take away from their practice time for their full time show. There could be huge score swings for each corps, especially if their prelim show fell apart on the field.

I'm heading for the bunker now.

[Bob984]

Welcome to old time drum corps. Even though DCI was established by then there was still a transition period between what was and what DCI wanted to be. Several things could account for these results which may seem odd today but actually were not that uncommon BITD. Without us being able to review the actual performances its possible the corps had a bad show or two. It could be they had one really great one. More likely is the judging. Back then it was not uncommon to have different judging panels from different sources between prelims and finals, especially at a show like the World Open. Most likely, local judges for prelims and "national" judges brought in from afar for finals. Each panel would set the norms for each show so that corps would be kept "in the ball park". With the way execution was judged back then a small, less talented corps could find themselves with zeros for all execution captions. That would not be good so there would be a general agreement that only say one in five errors would be marked for all corps in the show. That would skew the actual scores to the high end of the curve but would not result in total humiliation to the bottom corps. In prelims the norm would be looser than finals. In finals, judging would be more critical as the spread (both in talent or performance and in scores) between finalists would be narrower because the finalists were the cream of the crop for that particular show. This also meant that the corps had to really do the job or they'd get pushed back by those that did because of the narrower range of scores. Moving from a show like the 1974 World Open to DCI Nationals would mean a complete change of norms because there were a lot more corps at Nationals and DCI would bring in all the "national judges", the big guns if you will. There was a lot at stake for the corps especially the top 25 from the year before who of course were the only DCI member corps. There was real pressure to "make things happen" with the member corps or a judge or judges would get banned officially or unofficially. (Yes these things did happen over the years. My father was a corps director and was deeply involved behind the scene outside of our corps. His experience was not unique and many a judge form the old days left town in a hurry, never to be seen there again after not "playing ball".)

Of course, don't loose site of the fact that Pembroke was a New England powerhouse at the time but may have had issues the few times they went on the road as they did not regularly tour. Politics and a bad day could really kill a corps score.

IIRC prelim shows were at that point in time a full field show so that would not be a factor. DCI did away with the abbreviated field show for prelims in the early 70's. Before this rule change an abbreviated prelim show often had problems trying to mesh drill changes, timing, music and familiarity with the changes. Corps did not often need a prelim show and when they did they often didn't put in too much time perfecting it as it could take away from their practice time for their full time show. There could be huge score swings for each corps, especially if their prelim show fell apart on the field.

I'm heading for the bunker now.

It was amazing how much movement could happen back then, even late in the season.....Pembroke beat the Kilts at WO prelims....one week later, Kilts were 4th at DCI prelims; Pembroke 30th....76 Muchachos had a similar situation...they beat multiple finalists with a week to go, only to place 22nd.......however, I heard from several involved that they had a down performance in prelims.............It is a shame but well-known about the various judging associations and politics.....at any rate, I am certain that those who marched in the Pembroke Imperials will remember the roller coaster of competition that they were on during the last week of 1974!!

GB

[Imperial]

It was amazing how much movement could happen back then, even late in the season.....Pembroke beat the Kilts at WO prelims....one week later, Kilts were 4th at DCI prelims; Pembroke 30th....76 Muchachos had a similar situation...they beat multiple finalists with a week to go, only to place 22nd.......however, I heard from several involved that they had a down performance in prelims.............It is a shame but well-known about the various judging associations and politics.....at any rate, I am certain that those who marched in the Pembroke Imperials will remember the roller coaster of competition that they were on during the last week of 1974!!

GB

Let me chime in here. The 74 W.O. did allow abbrieviated shows in the prelims, due to the shear number of corps competing that day and Pembroke took advantage of it. If you compare the prelim score to the finals Pembroke dropped a lot. We need to be fair though and give the Imperials their due. They were a very good corps and most times -because as someone pointed out that they toured a little less- they were given the shaft. Also, the previous year they were VFW Champs over corps like the Belleville Black Knights and the Bleu Raiders. In 74, at DCI Prelims, they were the victim of less exposure to touring and judging and too much exposure the night before to beer LOL. They put in a very dissapointing prelim performance. But there were so many corps back then, it was easy to kick a corps down the chute for a bad performance in an effort to place them all. http://www.pembrokeimperials.org

Edited March 5, 2010 by Imperial

[Bob984]

Let me chime in here. The 74 W.O. did allow abbrieviated shows in the prelims, due to the shear number of corps competing that day and Pembroke took advantage of it. If you compare the prelim score to the finals Pembroke dropped a lot. We need to be fair though and give the Imperials their due. They were a very good corps and most times -because as someone pointed out that they toured a little less- they were given the shaft. Also, the previous year they were VFW Champs over corps like the Belleville Black Knights and the Bleu Raiders. In 74, at DCI Prelims, they were the victim of less exposure to touring and judging and too much exposure the night before to beer LOL. They put in a very dissapointing prelim performance. But there were so many corps back then, it was easy to kick a corps down the chute for a bad performance in an effort to place them all. http://www.pembrokeimperials.org

Thanks for the info.......I had never heard of "abbreviated" prelim performances, so that explains some things......still an interesting series of events, though...............

GB

[KeithHall]

Yes BITD judging was like that. In NY our corps would never get a break but outside in other states we did better. 1976 was our best year, we did a show in Greece, NY and were dumped. Ted Key our brass arranger and instructor was in tears after we came off the field and said, "You were screwed!" We beat those corps later. So yes judging was a bit corrupt BITD IMO.

Welcome to old time drum corps. Even though DCI was established by then there was still a transition period between what was and what DCI wanted to be. Several things could account for these results which may seem odd today but actually were not that uncommon BITD. Without us being able to review the actual performances its possible the corps had a bad show or two. It could be they had one really great one. More likely is the judging. Back then it was not uncommon to have different judging panels from different sources between prelims and finals, especially at a show like the World Open. Most likely, local judges for prelims and "national" judges brought in from afar for finals. Each panel would set the norms for each show so that corps would be kept "in the ball park". With the way execution was judged back then a small, less talented corps could find themselves with zeros for all execution captions. That would not be good so there would be a general agreement that only say one in five errors would be marked for all corps in the show. That would skew the actual scores to the high end of the curve but would not result in total humiliation to the bottom corps. In prelims the norm would be looser than finals. In finals, judging would be more critical as the spread (both in talent or performance and in scores) between finalists would be narrower because the finalists were the cream of the crop for that particular show. This also meant that the corps had to really do the job or they'd get pushed back by those that did because of the narrower range of scores. Moving from a show like the 1974 World Open to DCI Nationals would mean a complete change of norms because there were a lot more corps at Nationals and DCI would bring in all the "national judges", the big guns if you will. There was a lot at stake for the corps especially the top 25 from the year before who of course were the only DCI member corps. There was real pressure to "make things happen" with the member corps or a judge or judges would get banned officially or unofficially. (Yes these things did happen over the years. My father was a corps director and was deeply involved behind the scene outside of our corps. His experience was not unique and many a judge form the old days left town in a hurry, never to be seen there again after not "playing ball".)

Of course, don't loose site of the fact that Pembroke was a New England powerhouse at the time but may have had issues the few times they went on the road as they did not regularly tour. Politics and a bad day could really kill a corps score.

IIRC prelim shows were at that point in time a full field show so that would not be a factor. DCI did away with the abbreviated field show for prelims in the early 70's. Before this rule change an abbreviated prelim show often had problems trying to mesh drill changes, timing, music and familiarity with the changes. Corps did not often need a prelim show and when they did they often didn't put in too much time perfecting it as it could take away from their practice time for their full time show. There could be huge score swings for each corps, especially if their prelim show fell apart on the field.

I'm heading for the bunker now.

[Imperial]

Thanks for the info.......I had never heard of "abbreviated" prelim performances, so that explains some things......still an interesting series of events, though...............

GB

You're welcome and I just want to add, that aside from some early season ties and maybe even a loss to the Beverly Cardinals, the Imperials were the number one corps in New England in 74, Crusaders and 27th Lancers not withstanding. I think that's a little known fact.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Imperial