Where and when was your first live corps show?

[OldCorpsGuy]

But did you go to the critique after the show? It’s legendary. 

[Hook'emCavies]

2008 at the Berry Center. I was going into my senior year in high school. In so many ways I blamed my crazy ex (that's a story there) for not allowing me to get into the things I love, but I will never forget how excited I was to see a show. Granted my Cavies didn't perform in Cypress that season, but I was glad to see Crown. Plus, they also stayed at my high school... which was nice.

[perc2100]

On 9/9/2025 at 7:20 PM, mingusmonk said:

July 1, 1987

Drums to Dixie

Cary NC

1 Spirit of Atlanta 79.400

2 Garfield Cadets 79.000

3 Suncoast Sound 68.400

4 Dutch Boy 63.500

5 Florida Wave 60.300

6 Crossmen 54.600

Wow: Spirit of Atlanta who finished 10th, 10 points behind Garfield at finals a month & a half later!

[keystone3ply]

4 hours ago, Hook'emCavies said:

2008 at the Berry Center. I was going into my senior year in high school. In so many ways I blamed my crazy ex (that's a story there) for not allowing me to get into the things I love, but I will never forget how excited I was to see a show. Granted my Cavies didn't perform in Cypress that season, but I was glad to see Crown. Plus, they also stayed at my high school... which was nice.

So does your 'ex' live in Texas? (see it?) Ear worm alert. ⚠️😀

[wolfgang]

2 hours ago, perc2100 said:

Wow: Spirit of Atlanta who finished 10th, 10 points behind Garfield at finals a month & a half later!

If the rumored critique is correct, I'd loved for a judge(s) to push back and tell him to go for it and we'd be thrilled to be on the call with you.

If he did push it, instead of winning we could have had a Geneseo Knights situation (allegedly). It was a different era then.

[perc2100]

44 minutes ago, wolfgang said:

If the rumored critique is correct, I'd loved for a judge(s) to push back and tell him to go for it and we'd be thrilled to be on the call with you.

If he did push it, instead of winning we could have had a Geneseo Knights situation (allegedly). It was a different era then.

I have no idea what you're talking about here, but if there is some good rumor or whatnot, I'd love to hear it!  As for Geneseo Knights, I've heard of them but they were long gone by my introduction to drum corps in 1990, my first year of HS, and definitely by 1991, my first introduction to live drum corps (I think they were Quad City Knight when I 'discovered' drum corps, though I wasn't very familiar with them)

[Hook'emCavies]

4 hours ago, keystone3ply said:

So does your 'ex' live in Texas? (see it?) Ear worm alert. ⚠️😀

The answer is yes, and I had  to get a restraining order... yeah, I'm gonna leave it at that lol. She isn't a good person sadly.

[Sutasaurus]

1 hour ago, Hook'emCavies said:

The answer is yes, and I had  to get a restraining order... yeah, I'm gonna leave it at that lol. She isn't a good person sadly.

“All my exes live in Texas that’s why I live in Tennessee”

[wolfgang]

3 hours ago, perc2100 said:

I have no idea what you're talking about here, but if there is some good rumor or whatnot, I'd love to hear it!  As for Geneseo Knights, I've heard of them but they were long gone by my introduction to drum corps in 1990, my first year of HS, and definitely by 1991, my first introduction to live drum corps (I think they were Quad City Knight when I 'discovered' drum corps, though I wasn't very familiar with them)

It's been posted that Garfield's Director threatened some judges that they would never judge again after Spirit beat them.

It's also an urban legend that members of Knights staff went off in critique in the late 70s or early 80s when they were in contention for Finals, and mysteriously their scores tanked, but I'm not sure which year. Again, urban legend.

[OldCorpsGuy]

10 hours ago, wolfgang said:

It's been posted that Garfield's Director threatened some judges that they would never judge again after Spirit beat them.

It's also an urban legend that members of Knights staff went off in critique in the late 70s or early 80s when they were in contention for Finals, and mysteriously their scores tanked, but I'm not sure which year. Again, urban legend.

It was 1983. As a former Knight (I did not match with them in 83 though) it is my understanding that the staff did not “go off” on the judges the way Hopkins did in 1987. They were looking for answers as to how they could be 9th in prelims and 10th in Finals at Whitewater and then be 16th 2 weeks later in Miami. Not to mention that the Sky Ryders came in 12th in prelims and then their score dropped so far in Finals that the Knights would have made finals with their prelim score.
To this day we have never gotten those answers. The Corps director at the time is active on their Facebook page and I see alumni ask every now and then they ask the question “what happened” and he always replies he doesn’t know. But I can tell you that effectively destroyed the corps. A ton of members didn’t come back and I’ve seen several on Facebook saying they stopped following the activity as a whole after that. 

Edited September 12, 2025 by OldCorpsGuy