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Drum Corps Favorite Experience Memory?


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Hey guys, I'm new here and i've always admired drum corps. (then again, who wouldn't?) and i was just wondering, for those people who had marched or is marching with them now, what are some of your favorite experiences and memories that you had encountered and created while being a part of your organization? i'm interested to know..! so thanks!

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1969 - Aquinas Stadium, Rochester.

As a young kid I had spent many a night listening to the 1966 Dream and Brass by Night albums. I was in my third year of junior corps. Toronto hosted the Shriners International (won by Kilties over Boston) and the North American Invitational (won by Troopers over Des Plains). Every kid in the province who was not in one of the competing corps did their best to make the trip down the 401 to Hogtown to see those shows.

Come Labour Day weekend, I was given a last minute offer to take in the DCA prelims. My first senior show. We arrived at Aquinas Stadium just as the Hurricanes were finishing their show. Getting out of the car, on the street, opposite the concert side of the stadium, the sound was louder than anything I had ever heard at any junior show...and it was good. Really good, for that era. Hurcs exited the stadium near our parking spot. To a young kid, they looked like a muscle corps...these guys were men. They were relaxed professionals, not robots, like the junior corps I was so used to. Totally different than the type of corps one sees today.

I finally got in the stadium to watch the prelims and found most of the shows lacking after that introduction to the senior scene.

The one notable exception - I had already missed Hurc, Sky and Cabs - was Yankee Rebels. The first half of their show was just OK. I was not into their music selections, nothing I could recognize at the time...but the second half was light years ahead of the pack, junior or senior.

Half the guard were in Confederate uniforms, half in Union (even as a Canadian kid, we watched Disney every week and were hooked on the civil war stuff). When they started their War Between the States...well, no one had ever done anything like it. It ought to be required listening for every corps designer and music director, even today. They packed difficulty, emotion, repetition and simplicity into one great piece of music. Sorry, Bridgemen, your Civil War a decade later was great, but not as great as what those guys laid down that day.

I can only imagine how every American in the crowd must have bursting with pride and choking it back a bit when they hit the Battle Hymn finish. A Battle Hymn that dwarfed Troopers and Cavies.

Think of it in these terms, when did you last or ever get goosebumps and cheer as the citizens of another country foisted their history and flag on you? I am die hard proud of my country, but that was my experience.

I have no recollection of the corps finish of When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Perhaps my brain was stuck on what I had just heard before the finale. Listening back at the recording of the finals, one could also surmise that I have no recollection of the finish because it simply could not be heard from the stands - the crowd noise was that thunderous.

Neither the Hurcs nor Yankee Rebs became a favorite for me, but on one day in 1969, WOW.

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Hey guys, I'm new here and i've always admired drum corps. (then again, who wouldn't?) and i was just wondering, for those people who had marched or is marching with them now, what are some of your favorite experiences and memories that you had encountered and created while being a part of your organization? i'm interested to know..! so thanks!

Welcome to DCP! One of my favorite memories was when i was a member of the 1988 Madison Scouts. We took a trip/tour of europe to celebrate the scouts 50th anniversary. While there at a show in Holland fans and members from corps approached us after the show and asked us for our autographs. I signed programs and i even signed a gong. What memories!

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