2015 Drum Corps Associates World Championships Preliminary Competition

[N.E. Brigand]

The heat doesn't seem to be affecting the performances, although I am sure they are feeling it out there.

NWS says the temperature in Rochester today went up to 88.

[C.Holland]

Both prerecorded. A missed opportunity to involve more local high school bands in the show, I'd say (besides the one whose members were selling programs): have a band or two in to play these pieces live, give their students cheap tickets, and thus get them interested in drum corps.

wow. what a marketing fail. cmon. get it together. it wouldnt just be the band students, think two tickets sold (at least) for every member of that band.

[N.E. Brigand]

If I remember, this is music from Back to the Future III, correct? I've only seen that movie once and that was one too many times.

I think Leonard Maltin's guide gives it 3.5 out of 4 stars, if you can believe that.

[N.E. Brigand]

Who's Doctor Beat is blaring from outside the stadium? Isn't that a penalty?

Was that the penalty that hit Carolina Gold? The metronome was audible for about a minute as Alliance was setting up, then it stopped (some audience members applauded at that point), but then it reappeared for another 30 seconds or so about a minute into Alliance's performance.

But while that was particularly obnoxious, and certainly should have been penalized, the warm-up zone in that area is just too darn close to the stadium. During almost every ballad, I could hear another corps' battery playing in that location.

[N.E. Brigand]

We have a member down, looks like it's due to the heat. She's sitting up now.The EMTs are working with her. Kilties are standing by as the paramedics won't want to move her until she's well enough to do so.

This was an alarming ten minutes. About halfway through Chops' show, I noticed that there was now only one guard member visible, but at first, I assumed the other was hiding to undertake a costume change or something like that. It was only when one staff member, and then another, ran to the edge of the field that I realized that she was lying on the sideline, partly obscured from our view by the pit. The EMTs were summoned and were with her before Chops' performance ended. I actually thought they might stop the show to help her.

Are there procedures to stop a performance for emergencies? And if that happened, after the injured member was helped, would Chops have started from where they stopped, or from the beginning, or what?

[N.E. Brigand]

Two quirks in the DCA Yearbook and the printed schedule that were available (for $10 and free, respectively) at the stadium today. The former thinks that next year will be the "52th" DCA champsionships. The latter had Thunderbirds going on first today.

[N.E. Brigand]

At some point they turned their sashes from power blue to red. I suck at noticing visual subtleties like that.

Me too! I think I noticed at about the same time as you.

[N.E. Brigand]

Stream has been awesome. What's the crowd size

Up top, where I was sitting, to say it was sparse at the start would be generous. At the end, about one-third of the seats were empty, but many of them had been filled earlier: lots of people who went to meet family members and friends in corps who had performed earlier.

[N.E. Brigand]

One guard member is now in a red dress. We have our main character. I'm betting her name is Lola, but is she a showgirl?

Nice, Barry.

[N.E. Brigand]

Next on the field is Carolina Gold . . .

L’Inverno by Vivaldi, Antonio

Funny that Carolina Crown should title their show "Inferno" while Carolina Gold plays a song (movement, really) called "L'inverno"--which means "winter". Apparently they're not etymologically connected. The former derives from Latin infernus, while the latter comes from the Latin hibernum.

(In the DCI season-opener cinema screening this year, the announcers asked one of Carolina Crown's if "Inferno" meant "hell". No, he said, it actually means "fire". They were right; he was not.)