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First Show You Ever Saw...


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Watched on PBS a few times, but 1st live performance was 1988 DCI South in Birmingham, AL. The first corps (which I had to look up to remember) was Marauders. They started the show with a company front playing Toccata & Fugue in D Minor by Bach - blew me away! The mono speaker on our TV didn't do the volume justice. And it just got better from there. Saw SCV, Madison, Spirit, Skyriders, Velvet Knights, Suncoast...it was a great show. Bought my first drum corps t-shirt (SCV Phantom of the Opera tour shirt) and cemented me as a lifetime fan.

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Card-carrying member of the Dinosaur brigade...

First show I ever saw live was in Syracuse, NY in August, 1974. This was an exhibition, on the night following '74 finals in Ithaca. Our band director took the whole marching band as a field trip in thanks for our summer involvement. Funny thing is...right before the first group went on, he walked around to all of us and said "Pay attention to this first corps, for you're going to get a BIG surprise!" We had marched that summer to his arrangement of "Ghost Riders," and thought we were pretty darned good (for a small rural school band, anyway). When the Troopers came off the line -- well...we all became Trooper fans for life!! I'll never forget my best friend, after about 15 seconds, jumping up and exclaiming "Holy XXXX!!! That's our song!!!" I can't honestly remember the other corps appearing that night, although I seem to recall SCV being among them. Don't quote me on that, however.

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Never thought to check corpreps. The other appearing corps were Scouts, Muchachos, SCV, and Kingsmen.

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7/19/1986 Pittsburgh PA Drum Corps East.

Looking at fromthepressbox.com, I saw

Aventuries

Connexion Quebec

Diplomats

Canadian Knights

Florida Wave

Crossmen

Les Eclipses

Boston Crusaders

Dutch Boy

27th Lancers

Garfield Cadets

Spirit of Atlanta

I was blown away by Garfield, even though SoA came out on top that night.

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The first show I saw was the 2007 Blue Knights at the Rose Bowl for Prelims. I was amazed by the visual precision and sound they were producing, and I was captivated throughout the entire program. However, I was there working at the Jolesch Booth for that day and semifinals, so I didn't get to see too much else.

The first competition I bought a ticket for was Corps at the Crest Walnut in 2008, and I can still remember the sheer volume of Vanguard's first impact of their show. I've gone to the Walnut show every year since.

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1979 or 1980. On TV. My mom, or sister....someone said "there's a marching band on TV". I park in front of it. Stare. I don't see woodwinds, the instruments are all silver, they look different. The group is big (compared to my HS band) and they are in all blue and black (it was Spirit of Atlanta) and they were GOOD and they sounded AWESOME. 2 years later I found an up and coming corps in my area (I won't say who - I like the anonymity) and two years later I was a member of my local drum and bugle corps that at that time was top 6 and marched for 2.5 years (I was drum major of my HS band and wasn't allowed to tour and be drum major so I had to quit after camping). Good ole TV - in technicolor to I might add.

Top 6 up-and-comer in the early '80s. : ) Loved their shows. Sad they're not with us today.

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Ygnacio Valley High School 1970. a drum and bell competiton and at the end there was an exhibition by a drum and bugle corps called the Blue Devils. I was 8 years old. Late October that year I joined up but they had no corps I could join because you had to be 10 to be in Jr. Drum and Bell. They started a new drum corps because I was taking lessons and had all 26 down by spring of 71. Now it's called the C corps!

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August 9th, 1994 Nightbeat, Charlotte NC

1 Cadets of Bergen County 92.800

2 Madison Scouts 88.900

3 Blue Knights 85.900

4 Freelancers 77.300

5 Carolina Crown 75.000

6 Southwind 67.500

7 Suncoast Sound 60.900

I remember the Baseball show vividly that Southwind put on....the drum major "baseball signs" salute was particularly cool for a young kid about to start his first year in marching band.

The Freelancers were there and although I don't remember the show at all, my future college marching band director was marching in that show! (shout out to trwiggin)

Madison of course had a crowd pleasing Latin show, but my uncle had introduced me to the Cadets by showing me their Anthology videos and I was a HUGE fan of their West Side Story show.

I didn't attend another drum corps show until Finals night in 1997, but I had already auditioned for a corps by that point and ultimately started marching in a Div 3 corps in 98 before making my way to Div 1 in 99.

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June 25, 1981 Cary, NC

My first show seeing happened to also be the first show I marched in. North Star was the first corps I got to sit and watch. They were very entertaining. Then Spirit - very loud.

Then Bridgemen - really dug their show. Then 27th Lancers - fell in love with them instantly.

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