Snapettes Mom Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Saturday Heading out early to the Renegade newly adopted practice site, Foothill Jr. College in beautiful Los Altos. As I pull into the parking lot Gospel music is booming from my car stereo and soaring out my window causing a rooster nearby to join in. I never listen to gospel music in fact the only music I have heard for the past few months is drum corps and parking lot down loads. Reason for going early is out of desperation to finally get all of our snare drums tuned for once this season. Hallelujah! After stretching out the drum line jogs around the track doing trial victory lap leaving the oldest members drafting in the rear. The color guard jumps and prances back and forth across one end zone and the horn line takes their lead and does the same in the other. I can only guess that everyone likes the field. We have a great morning rehearsal ending around 2:00 and head over to the show site a few miles away in Sunnyvale at Fremont HS for the California State Championships. Since I have a little time I head over to the stands to watch Pacific Crest rehears. Lot’s of improvement especially in the drum line. I sit with VK Garry from So Cal Dream for a few minutes and in doing so I asked him if had heard about the rumor that the Renegade drum line had decided to steel the So Cal Dream street beat and play it at DCA. Being a true gentleman he offers to send the sheet music our way. It’s pretty darn cool. The new drum line Renegod T-shirts have finally arrived and everyone in the battery section is looking way cool wearing one. The battery section in a relaxed mode. Not sure what it is but the lines are straighter, drum heights are more level, rim shots are smacking and rolls are crispy clean. It’s the longest amount of time we have taken to warm up and the extra time is helping us lock up. Show time the corps has a great show. The opening hit works like a flamethrower on the crowd and the field lights up evening with good and evil drum corps mixed with roaring applause in response from the fans. You’ll have to read a different review to get the details from during the performance. I CAN tell you this. I wasn’t sucking oxygen desperately for once and physically I felt totally energized by the end of the show. While marching in review along the track I have never seen the corps look stronger and happier about their performance. Glancing around randomly at the crowd through my evil sunglasses I could see the huge grins everywhere. I can’t tell you nice yet humbling it was to have fans walking up to us the rest of the night telling us how much they loved our show under the red sky. The only thing betters than that was performing the show itself. Full corps review was fun and silly. Battery section looked like they were chewing on tobacco as they ate some starburst that was tossed around. We played our Drum solo from the Matrix and moved around in slow motion during the bullet section. Gillmans pizza party. All I have to say was I left before midnight and I was good. I heard later the next day that the party ended up reaching the corps evil standards. Sunday I’m usually pretty good with directions but this time I’ve read the map upside down and end up lost for a little while. After getting 4 different directions from the two guys working the gas/food place I find myself even more lost and decide to just hunt around for stadium lights until realize the map I reading was not only upside down but inside out. Does that make sense? It didn’t for me either for long while. I have determined that Del Oro HS is located in the hottest corner of the earth. Reaching a scorching 130 plus degrees on a two-week-old green rubber field that is still off gassing strongly. The mirage created from the heat made the goal post appear as if they are wiggling in slow motion. My drum had become so hot I could only lift it with my drumsticks. My carrier vest was even hotter easily reaching radioactive levels. No amount of water I drank or poured over my head could keep my face from turning purple. I dipped my hat in a cooler filled with melted ice and did a final run through. After we are finished it’s all I can do from passing out as I caravaned along with Scot and Carlos and made a pit stop to buy 4 more bottles of water and poured another over my head immediately after walking outside. Brain cells are evaporating at an alarming rate and created some problems later during the evening show. After relaxing at our traditional pre-show Subway for some chow Scot invites Carlos and I over to his luxury home a couple of blocks away to cool off in his pool and hot tub. The next couple of hours are spent floating around in his pool and taking in the bubbles wondering if were missing out on the BBQ before the show. The Loomis show is totally great. The warm up is a little dusty but the new drum line T-shirts make us look 7X better. This was the Renegades only show so far under the lights and the excitement level in the corps was turned up to full tilt. The show was pretty darn on and the crowd loved every moment. After scores were announced I consumed my 7th gallon water and watched the standstill performances from So Cal and River City. Awesome… enough said. The best part of the weekend and probably the summer so far was our victory concert. Man was it unbelievably EVIL! Whoa, what a weekend. Dennis Mancini AKA The Snapettes Mom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FYWW Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 You know, I have been trying to convince my coworkers here in SoCal that it really was that hot in Loomis on Sunday, but they just wouldn't believe me. So I passed around the paragraph where you proved my point in perfect detail. Thanks! ^_^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCVAlumniGuard Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Those little black rubber pebbles were cooking in my shoes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapettes Mom Posted July 23, 2003 Author Share Posted July 23, 2003 I hear yah concerning those little black pebbles also known as tire shred. The grounds keeper was proudly describing the layers under the field like a mattress salesman. I would recommended they might consider laying down a layer of refrigerated pipes like they do at the Snapettes corps hall fondlyknown as the IceDen Hockey Dome. Mom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FYWW Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 I'm still picking those #### rabbit turds out of my shoe! <**> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCVAlumniGuard Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Some of us still has burn marks from carelessly picking up our flag poles while they were still cooking in the sun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FYWW Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Some of us still has burn marks from carelessly picking up our flag poles while they were still cooking in the sun. Yes, and putting a metal mouthpiece up to your lips after it's been sitting for as little as 30 seconds ain't too comfy either. ;)^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCVAlumniGuard Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Yes, and putting a metal mouthpiece up to your lips after it's been sitting for as little as 30 seconds ain't too comfy either. ;)^ That's one reason why I chose not to play brass. Wearing a harness is out too, so no drums. Guard seems to be a happy medium. You guys were hurtin' out there. Drum Corps...no pain...no gain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FYWW Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Drum Corps...no pain...no gain. Drum corps... no pain... happy corps members. haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade_fireman Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Definitly was a cool show. was a privlege to play with a great bassline. and was also a great thing to play all 8 corps onto the feild for retreat. totaly awsome weekend. Thank you Danny, Mike, Mike, and Chris. good job guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.