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What do you miss about the good old drum corps days ?


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  • Grassroots community-based corps with local kids participating, not college students from all over the country.
  • No "seeding" for standings. Corps could improve as the season progressed: practice hard, make adjustments, play their hearts out, strive for perfection .... maybe break through to winning The Big Shows despite their finishes at prior performances.
  • Generational loyalty to a corps. No "corpies" jumping from organization-to-organization in search of titles.
  • Proud of being being vastly different from (and superior to) marching bands - military precision, in-your-face music. We marched - they shuffled, scrambled and danced.
  • Local corps with no corporate financial backing were able to get the community to help them rent two buses and a truck, having a chance at winning important shows and possible titles on the national scene.

Here, here!!!! :thumbup::thumbup:

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My first exposure to drum corps was attending competitions that featured a drill team my sisters marched in in the late 60’s/early 70’s. I remember loving the variety and the volume of the drum corps and while I didn’t know much about them, it was love at first sight. Five years later I began marching in a CYO band and began following drum corps almost religiously. Sadly many corps had disbanded and by the time I finished marching, most of the bands were gone, all of the drill teams were gone or only competed as winter guards, and it seemed as if almost daily the remaining drum corps began disbanding. Soon even powerhouses like North Star and 27th were gone and many thought BAC would be gnome too.

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My first exposure to drum corps was attending competitions that featured a drill team my sisters marched in in the late 60’s/early 70’s. I remember loving the variety and the volume of the drum corps and while I didn’t know much about them, it was love at first sight. Five years later I began marching in a CYO band and began following drum corps almost religiously. Sadly many corps had disbanded and by the time I finished marching, most of the bands were gone, all of the drill teams were gone or only competed as winter guards, and it seemed as if almost daily the remaining drum corps began disbanding. Soon even powerhouses like North Star and 27th were gone and many thought BAC would be gnome too.

I did not know BAC was moving to Alaska. :lookaround:

Remembering the line in that great film..."There's no place like gnome." :doh:

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I miss the local circuits. I miss knowing every kid in my corps. Hell, we were all from the same neighborhood, grew up together, went to school together, hung around together, etc. I miss knowing most of the kids in every corps we competed against. Went to school with many of them, too.

In the Boston area, in the 1950s and 1960s you couldn't walk five blocks in any direction without meeting some one you knew from drum corps. There were about a hundred drum corps, drill teams, and bands within 50 miles of the Massachusetts State House. It was a huge, and for the most part, friendly community. Guys from all over the area marched together in the Princemen after their junior corps time was up. Later, many of us judged corps together, instructed corps together.

Even later we marched with each other again in the Legends of Drum Corps, or in some of the fine alumni corps that still persevere in the area. During that time I loved just going to rehearsals and working out with the great people I grew up with.

Those great days are almost gone forever. Drum Corps kids today will never get the same opportunity. In the 50s and 60s we had more corps in the Boston area than now exist in the entire world. The same is true for Metro NYC, metro, Philadelphia, metro Chicago.

Those of us who are still alive now finally realize how lucky we were.

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Late '70's my HS marching band mellophone section, 8 of us were also horn players in 3 Seattle area corps. Local parades we had to march with the band, and would then change into our respective corps uniforms and do the parade again.

Retreats, parades, local shows, rides home were always interesting. Fun times for sure!

Edited by bdon15
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Please refer to posts #6 :thumbup: #7 :worthy: and ah... #8 :rolleyes: Not to mention shows like the Dream, the World and U.S. Open where the fans were rabid and the stands were full!

I was watching a DVD of the 1970 Troopers at the World Open and the back stands are full. Can you imagine buying a ticket to watch the performers backs? Same thing 1967 American Legion. Back in the 60's/70's, it wasn't unheard of for shows to alternate the concerts side, with every other corp playing away from you.

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I was watching a DVD of the 1970 Troopers at the World Open and the back stands are full. Can you imagine buying a ticket to watch the performers backs? Same thing 1967 American Legion. Back in the 60's/70's, it wasn't unheard of for shows to alternate the concerts side, with every other corp playing away from you.

My dad remembers hustling up to Boston College many years in the 1960's and early 70's because the tickets for the CYO Nationals and Mission Drums would often sell out.

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The smell of newly cut grass in late Spring triggering that pleasant "oh yeah" feeling.

The sound a brass line makes when things start to click.

The unbelievable run-through late in the season that when it's over everyone sort of looks at each other and the staff and goes "Oh, that's what we're trying to do!"

The friends who know everything about you and about whom you know everything that stay in your life for decades.

The parties at Freddy's house.*

People like John (or Ted) Sasso, Gene Bennett, Dennis Delucia, Frank Dorritie, Billy Kaufman, and others that you could place complete faith and trust in and know that they wouldn't lead you in the wrong direction.

The utterly stupid, ridiculous songs sung on buses at all hours of day and night at the top of our lungs (never did figure that whole thing out...why did we derive pleasure from screaming things like "Hawthorne you gay Caballeros..." or "Bobo, si wotten totten ah ah... ah ah" ???)

To Puppet's point - the screaming crowds - maybe this most of all.

Watching your kids fall in love with the same activity (albeit changed) and live it all again.

*you had to be there.

Man... one could go on and on - Merry Christmas - thanks for the opportunity to summon up some of those memories.

Edited by rayfallon
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G bugles, the whole corps marched (even the tymp and mallet players) Valve/rotor horns no less. the hard corps rivalries, riding in a bus for hours on end (praying the bus would not break down) The smell of bus exhaust. Off the line actually meant something. Open class corps (NOT world class) that had kids that were actually as young as 13 years old, and local! Ah the good old days.

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