Your first DCI experience

[rayfallon]

Many video tapes in the '80s.

First live: June 22, 1991; marching with BAC, in Bayonne, NJ.

Very cool Boston year - was it your only one? You played with some world class baris in '91, no?

[BAC91]

Very cool Boston year - was it your only one? You played with some world class baris in '91, no?

I'm a '91 rook-out; the year Mike Cushing won the bari I&E. I worked with low brass in '94 very early season, when BAC was rehearsing at BHCC. Semi-finals of '94 was a very difficult night. "Worse than '90," a buddy of mine said to me, just after Colts' score was announced.

Now I park busses and rip tickets at BAC shows.

[Highwaydude]

2006 DCI Finals in Madison. The Green Machine won that year! My first time at a DCI show in person and I have been hooked ever since. I grew up in Iowa and in the late 70s and early 80s I remember watching them broadcast it on PBS back then. After seeing a show in person thou I have gone every year since 2006 now!

[DrumManTx]

Bluecoats rehearsed at my high school stadium in 2009 before their first show in Roswell that year. I had only been following DCI for a few months and this was the first time I saw a corps live. I had NO idea how loud it was until that day. I was just expecting some awesome music and hauling butt drill, but not the volume they put out and how a show pulls you in. It was ridiculous in my eyes.

[Tupid_06]

I discovered DCI by accident in 2002. I remember being a freshman in high school and overhearing one of the seniors talking about when they played "Malaguena" their freshman year. Back when Kazaa was popular, I looked up Malaguena and found something titled "A Drum Corps Fan's Dream: Part Dos" and downloaded it. I listened to it, and recognized "A Mis Abuelos" due to the trumpet players always playing it after school in the band room. I listened to this show nearly every night, and loved it. Eventually I became more curious and I decided to google "Madison Scouts" since Brandt Crocker announces them at the beginning of the track, discovered the 1995 audio of the Scouts , and from then on it kind of snowballed until I figured out what DCI was and became hooked (Thanks, Scouts!).

I attended my first show in 2005 after a friend from high school said he had 2 tickets to a show, but couldn't make the 3 hour drive there. I told my parents about it and my dad and my sister decided to make a trip out of it with me. I remember being blown away by how much better it was live! I stayed up for hours writing a review of each of the corps in the hotel so I could post it on DCP lol.

[msumello]

I discovered DCI by accident in 2002. I remember being a freshman in high school and overhearing one of the seniors talking about when they played "Malaguena" their freshman year. Back when Kazaa was popular, I looked up Malaguena and found something titled "A Drum Corps Fan's Dream: Part Dos" and downloaded it. I listened to it, and recognized "A Mis Abuelos" due to the trumpet players always playing it after school in the band room. I listened to this show nearly every night, and loved it. Eventually I became more curious and I decided to google "Madison Scouts" since Brandt Crocker announces them at the beginning of the track, discovered the 1995 audio of the Scouts , and from then on it kind of snowballed until I figured out what DCI was and became hooked (Thanks, Scouts!).

I attended my first show in 2005 after a friend from high school said he had 2 tickets to a show, but couldn't make the 3 hour drive there. I told my parents about it and my dad and my sister decided to make a trip out of it with me. I remember being blown away by how much better it was live! I stayed up for hours writing a review of each of the corps in the hotel so I could post it on DCP lol.

Using Kazaa....thats' how I got my first full shows......nowadays I actually have money to pay for the actual products.

[frachel]

1985 - 2 of the instructors for my tiny HS marching band (small town of 7000 people) were Garfield Alums (Tom Vandewater, current Blue Devils BOD member and Pat Zampetti (percussion, think Cadets hall of fame member?)).. one of my friends was a Cymbal player for Garfield that year, so we did a little field-trip to the high school where Garfield was staying and watched them practice, then later went to the Giant's Stadium show.. that was my first live show. Two years later (my sophomore year) our instructor was replaced by someone from the Caballeros, and he convinced me to march. So I walked in blind to my first Garfield camp in 87. I can't really put into words the experience, but something I'll never forget.

[Geneva]

Great story about your Ithaca College digs, nice! I have been in those dorms and it is one spectacular view of the Cayuga valley, lake, Ithaca, and Cornell. I was down on the Schoelkopf field that day playing with the Purple Lancers. My most vivid memory was of the excruciating tension which we experienced as the prelims were delayed just before our performance by a cloudburst downpour. We were underneath the stands for what seemed like an eternity waiting to go on. That performance was the goal of the entire season, my last in competitive drum corps, as we made our statement that we belonged on the finals field that evening. We were successful in becoming New York's only DCI finalist in the past 41 seasons. What a great way to leave the marching shoes behind!

1972. I recall attending shows with 27th, Blue Rock, Garfield Cadets, Boston Crusaders, Blessed Sacrament, etc on the East Coast.

But my first DCI championships attendance was in 1974 at Ithaca College in Upstate NY. My brother and I decided on a whim the night before to drive 8 hours for the Prelims. We had no tickets and no housing. We arrived just before the start of Prelims to find out that all housing for about 25 miles around was all booked. We thought we were going to have to sleep under the stars, or in our car, ( or under the bleachers ), or some such. However, we heard rumors that Ithaca College would open their College Dorms to fans and so we scambled over there, which was right up the hill from the stadium. We got lucky. The School charged us next to nothing for a great large room on the top floor of their high rise up on the hill and overlooking the stadium below where we could even see the entire field. We could even see the Corps lined up below for the Prelims Performance in sequential order below from the dorm window. The view was fantastic. We went back to the stadium, and met up some friends there we saw in the stands. They told us they had great rates for a hotel 6 miles away they booked months ago. We looked at one another, but didn't tell them what we got for housing. ( haha ).

What I remember about the '74 DCI championships was the regional calls for each section of the Country by fans in the stands in sort of a friendly banter back and forth. When an East Coast Corps performed, such as Muchachos, Purple Lancers, etc, you'd hear chants of " East !, East!, East ! " when they came on. I also remember the sheer numbers of World Class Corps in the Prelims... something like 55-60 Corps competed in the Prelims. I also recall the volatility and excitement of Corps moving up and down from Prelims to Finals. In the Prelims, Madison won, Anaheim Kingsmen 2nd, SC Vanguard 3rd. But in Finals it was SC Vanguard taking home the '74 DCI Title, with Madison 2nd, and Anaheim Kingsmen 3rd. I also recall the Hawthorne Muchachos doing a great performance on Finals Night moving up to 4th after finishing 7th in Prelims... and it was our first look at a new Corps from the West Coast that we thought had great music and was very entertaining. They finished 11th in Prelims, thus making the Top 12 for Finals Night, and moved up to 9th on Finals Night with their performance. The Corps was from " Concord, Calif " we found out.

[bluecoats88]

first show I ever saw live was 1979 Innovations in Brass in Canton Ohio. My brother had joined the Bluecoats that season and although they folded that year they still hosted their regular show at the Hall Of Fame Stadium in Canton and the Bluecoats member (my brother included) were score runners for the show. I remember Phantom Regiment won the show. I didn't start marching with the bluecoats until 1982 when I was 15.

[SpartanGuard]

I'm one of the rare band & corps nerds who doesn't play an instrument, so I wasn't even aware of corps until I joined the colorguard freshman year of high school. One of our percussionists marched Marion Glory Cadets the following summer, and his mom tried to recruit me for their guard, lol (how I wish my parents had let me! I was never able to march.)

My first live show was with some college and high school friends in June 2007 in Belding, MI. Saw Dutch Boy, Troopers, Colts, Crossmen, Blue Stars, Blue Knights (had a friend in the guard that year), Glassmen, and Cavaliers (not in that order). I was in heaven. The Cavaliers guard was, by far, the hottest thing I had ever seen. I seem to recall one of the guys throwing a 12 on saber, but that's probably exaggerated in my memory (though not impossible).