The 1984 Thread

[jwillis35]

The summer of 1984 was one for the ages for me. I started seeing shows in 79, and from 80-83 I only saw a few each year. I did see Finals in 1982 (BD, holy cow! That brass line in 82 and the music just blew my mind). I saw very little in 83. I think 1 show in fact. Never saw Garfield in 83, but I could tell from the PBS Broadcast that they were amazing. So in 1984 I saw quite a few shows. It was the first year for the build-up judging system I believe. You could tell that things were changing in terms of show design. Most corps were still performing some sort of "concert number," except for Garfield who had this seamless show from start to finish and opened the show with a ballad. Almost every top 12 corps that year (and many others) were entertaining. 

The Garfield Cadets 1984 show is truly one for the books. Mention great shows of all-time -- and I realize such lists are difficult to do, especially trying to compare different eras, decades -- but certainly the 84 Cadets are one of the corps many will mention. It wasn't like they were unbeatable. They lost to SCV, Phantom, and BD on several occasions during the season. They won the title by .1 over a stunningly HOT Blue Devils corps, with an amazing SCV sitting in 3rd. Percussion held Garfield back some, although I still enjoyed the writing and their performance. Garfield's brass was amazing when you consider what they played and also consider the crappy condition of those G bugles they were using. Their music arrangements were just breathtaking and still hold up against some of the stuff we hear today. But the real genius of this show was design. The GE, for that era, was stunning! The music arrangements and drill were stunning. The guard, the flow of the show, the pacing...it was a perfect show in terms of design. On a technical merit I might have given BD the title, but when you add in design and GE it was all Garfield. As others have said, the mello soloist was, and still is, considered one of the great DCI solos. When you saw this show it just felt larger than life. Now maybe that has to do with my age at the time (19), but it was an amazing experience to see them. I saw them with a friend at DCI Canada where Phantom Regiment beat them in prelims and finals, yet all anyone could talk about after the show was Garfield. And Phantom was darn good in 84.

The 1984 Blue Devils remain one of my favorite BD corps, and I like a lot of them. One of our present DCW writers (who many of you know) mentioned to me once that he coined BD's brass from that year the "Nuclear Holocaust" horn line. When they decided to give you some sound...you got A LOT OF SOUND. La Fiesta (Maynard Ferguson style) was fantastic and remains my all-time favorite concert number. The closer was beautiful and built to a wonder ending and blew the place down. I also loved the percussion feature and the opener. The whole show was worth it. For a while during that season I wasn't sure BD was going to beat SCV. SCV, as others have said, beat the Blue Devils a number of times. 

I guess I never knew about the late arrival for prelims by SCV. Their score clearly reflected an average performance by them. I did not see Finals, but I did see SCV several times during the season. I first saw them in Michigan City, IN and thought that might be good enough to win the title, especially with that percussion section. I saw them in Toledo, OH 2 days later and thought the same thing. Amazing show, and killer drumline. As others have said, their brass that year was smoking good as well. There was a 3-way tie for brass at Finals with SCV, BD, and Garfield. Not sure if there was a tie breaker in GE, but the top 7 or 8 brass lines in 1984 were frankly darn good. Anyway, SCV was amazing and it was only when I saw them against Garfield that I could see and feel the difference in design and GE. 

 

More later...

[jwillis35]

Here is a list of the show music played by the top 25 corps from 1984.

The Cadets	1	98.000	West Side Story - Maria (from West Side Story) * Rumble (from West Side Story) * Prologue (from West Side Story) * America (from West Side Story) * I Have a Love (from West Side Story) * Tonight (from West Side Story)
Blue Devils	2	97.900	Bacchanalia * Latin Implosion * Karn Evil 9 * La Fiesta * Like A Lover
Santa Clara Vanguard	3	97.400	Fanfare and Allegro * Musika Bohema * On the Town * Tender Land
Phantom Regiment	4	95.600	Scythian Suite * Armenian Dances * Triptych * 1812 Overture
Madison Scouts	5	94.600	Ballet in Brass * Waltz of the Mushroom Hunters * Calico * Memory (from Cats)
Spirit of Atlanta	6	93.100	Porgy and Bess Overture - There's a Boat That's Leavin' Soon for New York (from Porgy and Bess) * It Ain't Necessarily So (from Porgy and Bess) * Blues in the Night * No One Together * I Loves You, Porgy (from Porgy and Bess) * Bess, You Is My Woman Now (from Porgy and Bess)
Suncoast Sound	7	92.000	Vietnam - Six O.S. * Aquarius (from Hair) * Requiem * (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction * America The Beautiful
The Cavaliers	8	89.700	Don Juan * Summer Sketches * Ozark * Pines of Rome
Freelancers	9	88.800	Power Suite * What Is Hip * Genji * With You I'm Born Again
Crossmen	10	86.300	Russlan and Ludmilla * Shoshana * Canto del Viento * Let Me Try Again
27th Lancers	11	85.600	Henry V * Eric's Theme (from Chariots of Fire) * Indian Lady * Ludwig * No Matter What Happens (from Yentl)
Velvet Knights	12	83.200	NBC Chimes Festival * Centurian Starfire * Seaside Samba * All Night Long (All Night) * Ending
Troopers	13	85.200	Battle Hymn of the Republic * Ghost Riders in the Sky * High Noon * The Aggie Song (from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas)
Bridgemen	14	84.800	Overture (from Merrily We Roll Along) * Boogie Down * Aw Quitcher Moanin (really The Chicken) * Civil War Suite
Les Eclipses	15	81.100	Don't Get Around Much Anymore * Selections from An American in Paris
Avant Garde	16	80.900	Eleanor Rigby * The Devil is a Liar * The Musician * Mountain Dance * You Can Have Me Anytime
Sky Ryders	17	80.700	Over the Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz) * Home on the Range * Journey from Mariabronn * La Virgen de la Macarena * Claire's Song
Geneseo Knights	18	76.600	Trittico * Notta a Roma * Heliopolis * It Was Almost Like A Song * Casals Suite
Boston Crusaders	19	76.200	Mexicali Nose * The Rainmaker * Moments in Japan * California Dreamin' * Conquest (from Captain From Castile)
Florida Wave	20	74.500	No More Blues * Canto de Ossanha * La Fiesta * Mallet Man * Malaga * Tropical heat Wave
Valley Fever	21	71.700	The Music and The Mirror (from A Chorus Line) * Once a Year Day (from The Pajama Game) * Reza * Only You
Blue Knights	22	70.700	If You Could Read My Mind * Sweet Inspiration * Trilogy * Magician * Ain't No Mountain High Enough * I'm Gonna Make You Love Me
Colts	23	70.400	Stardust * Swing, Swing, Swing (from 1941) * A Night in Tunisia * Peninsula * What's New? * Come in from the Rain
Dutch Boy	24	68.800	Rocky * Raiders of the Lost Ark
Pride of Cincinnati	25	66.400	Things Ain't What They Used To Be * Spain * So Very Hard To Go

[jwillis35]

Interesting that in 1984 you don't see Bluecoats or Glassmen in the top 25. They were 28th and 29th that year (Gmen, then Bloo). In fact, it was Pride of Cincinnati in 25th. There was a time in the early 80s that many thought the Ohio corps that would be the first to make top 12 would be Pride. Of course, Pride of Cincinnati would not stay in the drum corps business for long but would ultimately shift to sponsoring a top-notch WGI guard.

It was also weird for me to see Bridgemen in 14th after having been top 3 in 1980 (and those legendary percussion lines they had in the late 70s, early 80s).  Seeing 27th Lancers in 11th (and 10th in 83) was also weird. When I was a youth in a competitive band in NE Ohio many of our instructors would play us recordings of the old Bridgemen, 27th Lancers, and others. They seemed to worship those corps. To now see them sliding just felt odd. Things were definitely changing. Spirit of Atlanta had pushed into the big time in 78 and was continuing to be a power in the 80s. Suncoast Sound was stunning during the 80s, and their brass lines were just loaded with players and soloists. The Cavaliers were beginning to move up the ranks. And of course Garfield made the move from being a 13th place or lower corps for much of the 70s to a game-changing power in the 1980s. So the landscape was shifting. BD, SCV, Phantom, and Madison seemed to be the constants for the time being. 

[84BDsop]

I think Bloo was coming off an inactive year then.

Funny thing about "nuclear holocaust,"  That actually WAS a volume instruction we got...one time,

Warmup on finals night.  We're over in front of the basketball arena.  Go through the entire exercise routine, and then Wayne has us play a block chord as soft as we can...then a stepping up the volume with each repeat.   ppp, pp, p, mf, f, ff, fff...

And then it goes:

747!  (effing loud)

Earthquake! (REAL effing loud)

Then Wayne looks over to the tennis courts and sees Cadets' battery warming up

NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST!!

I can honestly say i have NEVER played a louder note....with no distortion...than I did at that moment.
 

Cadet cymbal, Dave Fowler, told me years later we actually scared his battery!

 

MWUUHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

[mfrontz]

9 hours ago, 84BDsop said:

I think Bloo was coming off an inactive year then.

Funny thing about "nuclear holocaust,"  That actually WAS a volume instruction we got...one time,

Warmup on finals night.  We're over in front of the basketball arena.  Go through the entire exercise routine, and then Wayne has us play a block chord as soft as we can...then a stepping up the volume with each repeat.   ppp, pp, p, mf, f, ff, fff...

And then it goes:

747!  (effing loud)

Earthquake! (REAL effing loud)

Then Wayne looks over to the tennis courts and sees Cadets' battery warming up

NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST!!

I can honestly say i have NEVER played a louder note....with no distortion...than I did at that moment.
 

Cadet cymbal, Dave Fowler, told me years later we actually scared his battery!

 

MWUUHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

In my corps the horn arc volume levels were p, mp, mf, f, ff, fff, 'Green Light' (loudest with good tone quality and intonation) and 'IT' (loudest possible, designed to stretch our Green Light capabilities.)

Was always a rush to play 'IT.'

 

 

[84BDsop]

3 hours ago, mfrontz said:

 

Was always a rush to play 'IT.'

 

 

The subsequent lack of O2 will do that.

[TRacer]

As Sam knows I marched the Red Team in ‘84 that had our brass staff try something new and march only 4 lead baritones instead of the usual 6 to fatten up the bottom baritones. We went back to 6 in ‘85.

Notes from that summer:

— The white pants were debuted at DATR. We were already dressed “in the greens” and sequestered on the busses when GR’s voice came over the CB radio: “Change of plan— go with the white pants.”  After a few seconds of stunned silence pandemonium ensued as we struggled to change in those confined quarters, but the atmosphere was one of exuberance. Contra Bob Benson (80-81 27th & 82 MBBB alum, 83 SCV) really got our bus’s juices flowing by bellowing (he was good at that) how we weren’t just going to wipe the field with Phantom, *everyone* was going down that night. Remember, all of the horses/super vets were off at Olympic Band that year, so it was “supposed” to be a down year with all the rookies (the average of the corps was just below 17.) Putting those pants 👖 on was utterly transformative, and the staff sensed it in the warmup arc. Despite taking 3rd in GE (PR was 1st in GE, then BD) and 2nd in Perc behind BD, we took Brass & Visual and the contest by 0.2. We only wore white pants at “big” shows like Whitewater and greens the rest of the time.

— We marched only 4 mellophones, 2 came from the San Jose Raiders, one had marched ‘82 SCV lead sop but skipped ‘83, and the last was a 5-year lead sop/mello vet age out. All the wailing mellophone runs you hear at the end of opener on the Finals recording was written in secret by those guys who sprung it on us at a camp. 

— our silver DEG horns sucked. I got the same horn the next year; it became a duct tape special. We had “horn envy” every time we saw BD’s horns up close. 

— I mentioned we marched 4 lead baris. Unfortunately, this became a hinderance of sorts because the staff tried to stick to the original 70’s arrangement of opener that had leads doubling FH parts everywhere which wouldn’t have been a big deal for a BD lead. However, it became clear by June that only one of us could do it consistently day in/day out, so parts were changed. The next year the brilliant Mike Wessling came from Argonauts giving us two with very strong upper range, so we got the green light to double FH parts again in Festive Overture. 

— The Prelims Disaster: SCV gives away the title in an astounding lapse in elementary timekeeping.

It was raining hard, yes. Back in those days  it wasn’t uncommon to have staff carry powerful CB walkie talkies as ours did. We were standing in two lines under cover with Aussies on trying to wait out the rain, and I had the misfortune of being ten feet from a staff member with the radio. GR came on:

”Where ARE you???”

Reply: ”We’re at (name of street)....over.”

What followed was a banshee shriek from the radio. GR went utterly ballistic on the staff, so much so the one holding the radio turned white. We were supposed to have been at the gate 15 minutes prior, and now we were very very very late. 

Steve, an ‘82 baritone vet who had participated in the “Run Down the McGill University Ramp” when SCV was late to Prelims in ‘82, broke the silence: “Oh no....oh SH—!! Not AGAIN!!” A lot of us hadn’t marched SCV ‘82 but were in the stands at McGill that year and witnessed that run down the ramp, and we knew what he meant. It meant we were screwed with a capital S. We were still blocks from the gate. No white pants magic to “save” us. Everyone panicked, staff included. 

We “almost ran” as fast as our equipment allowed (poor contras!) to the gate and were out of breath when we got there. The gates were thrown open and in we went, all pell mell and spooked. I remember being two steps over the back sideline (baris and FHs formed the columns off the 50) when Brandt announced we had one minute. The audience could sense something was really wrong as well and the meek soprano entrance set the stage for that god awful performance. It was the worst show of the year for most of us and we lost Nationals then & there. 

The staff took full responsibility for the debacle and apologized to us when we got back to our housing site. Tim Salzmann brought us back from the abyss of despair with one of the best off-the-cuff motivational speeches, and we barely slept that night. “I am standing in front of the first drum corps that is going to go from 4th in Prelims to 1st at Finals,” and we believed every word. My understanding is that our last run through before Finals was considered far superior by parents and observers who were there versus our Finals run, and we kept it close.

I always treasure my time in ‘84; the following year not so much. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by TRacer
Typos.

[84BDsop]

30 minutes ago, TRacer said:

 

— We marched only 4 mellophones, 2 came from the San Jose Raiders, one had marched ‘82 SCV lead sop but skipped ‘83, and the last was a 5-year lead sop/mello vet age out. All the wailing mellophone runs you hear at the end of opener on the Finals recording was written in secret by those guys who sprung it on us at a camp.

Similar story to how the backfield sop "One More Time" quote got into the end of "Latin Implosion."

It was a regular weekend rehearsal...brass line was working on LI and we came up to the soft ending.   I think the descending contra line at the end (played by the late Gary Brattin at finals, but all 8 contras got a chance to play it during various shows) was already written in.

We're holding the chord, and then Steve "Stymie" Leanene (he of "The Look" at the end of "La Fiesta") bust out the OMT quote.

Wayne looks at Stymie...pauses, then says "Yeah....let's keep that."

It was that moment, more than any other, that confirmed the kind of group I was in....where a suggestion from outside the instructional staff may not be immediately slapped down, but legitimately considerd, and even adopted.

It happened to me earlier, in a story I'll tell in a separate post, but this brought it home.

 

[troopers1]

1 hour ago, 84BDsop said:

think the descending contra line at the end (played by the late Gary Brattin at finals, but all 8 contras got a chance to play it during various shows)

I didn't realize Gary had passed.  I'm sad to hear it.  A bunch of us 1988 Troopers at UW knew him when he was on BK's staff.  We went to a halloween party at Lonnie Thompson's place in Greeley.  This dude walks in wearing a BD uniform, with the leather hat.  We chased him down in the kitchen and asked when he aged out.  He said "86".    We freaked (a number of us went back to '86) and we never left the kitchen.  We'd see him at BK camps in Laramie and on tour, and always had a great time talking to him.

[mfrontz]

5 hours ago, 84BDsop said:

Similar story to how the backfield sop "One More Time" quote got into the end of "Latin Implosion."

It was a regular weekend rehearsal...brass line was working on LI and we came up to the soft ending.   I think the descending contra line at the end (played by the late Gary Brattin at finals, but all 8 contras got a chance to play it during various shows) was already written in.

We're holding the chord, and then Steve "Stymie" Leanene (he of "The Look" at the end of "La Fiesta") bust out the OMT quote.

Wayne looks at Stymie...pauses, then says "Yeah....let's keep that."

It was that moment, more than any other, that confirmed the kind of group I was in....where a suggestion from outside the instructional staff may not be immediately slapped down, but legitimately considerd, and even adopted.

It happened to me earlier, in a story I'll tell in a separate post, but this brought it home.

 

As I mentioned in the OP, that may be my fave moment of the show.