Santa Clara 1984

[oldtimedrummer]

I was in Atlanta in 84 and BD really threw down in finals. I thought they absolutly smoked Cadets that night. I bet the issue with SCV was probably a political situation. There was a lot of political #### flying in the early 80's. Remember, at one point the score was "west coast nine, mid-west one, east coast maybe ??" There were those in power that wanted the east coast to do well.

??? Political ?? In which way ?? Against SCV ? or "for" SCV ???

I'mm curious on your take of things..and what you mean.

~G~

My take is the politics were going against SCV. There were people in high places that wanted the west coast out and I think SCV and BD both were both victims of politics that year. (Anybody remember when the Cadet horn line fell down in Whitewater and they still got a 10 in Visual EA?) 84 was a great year as all the corps were very good.

[SCVFan222]

Just remember you tied with scv and garfield for horns. Right? SCV's hornline was one of the bests that year with a bunch of 14 years olds too!

Edited March 20, 2004 by SCVFan222

[84BDsop]

With respect to 84 SCV. I do know that quite a few of their vets from 83 opted out on marching 84 so they could do the Olympic band down in LA. Perhaps the pressure of Prelims got to them without those vets. I don't recall. Vanguard had a great corps that year, beating every corps on the field.

Not to mention the near dozen people who left SC for BD (and STILL did not win at Pacific Procession!)

[SCVAlumTofRGuy]

Ok, it looks like I'll be the first from the group in question to chime in here.

At the time, the '84 contingent was the youngest corps SCV had fielded since its inception. It was also the first year that ladies were allowed in the brass line. Yes, some of the heavies left to do the '84 Olympic band gig. But, keep in mind that SCV was slated earlier that year to do the closing ceremonies of the LA Games; however, when the Soviet bloc boycotted the Games in the "t!t-for-tat" reponse to the US's 1980 Summer Games boycott, all the scheduling got completely FUBAR'd. Several of the closing ceremony acts got axed, including us. We learned this after first tour. We were crushed, as Gail & Dave Owens had been hyping on this all during our camps and so on. Gail even kept a little scale model of a 737 jet painted in SCV colors on his desk, as the Olympic committee had initially planned to charter a plane from Atlanta to take us to the Games, do the gig, then fly us back in time for Finals. Part of the plan was that they would have all new Premier percussion equipment waiting for the drummers & pit guys when we arrived so that they wouldn't have to pack it all on the plane.

Secondly, having a number of the heavies take that season off in no way "affected" our ability to take pressure; if anything, it helped. There were no "winners expectations" to contend with. Our backgrounds were very diverse: one of our contras marched '80-'82 27th, one of the snares had just put in several years with Nauth Stah, our one female baritone player (she was a lead, as I was) came from Memphis Blues Brass Band (remember them?), one of our French horn goddesses (her name was Kristen) had marched '79-'83 Guardsmen, our DM that year had done the same (he's the really loud DM on the '82 Guardsmen recording)-- the list goes on & on. Tim Salzman from Guardsmen fame was on our brass staff, and his unique style really whipped us into shape. Because of him, Sandra Opie (THE '72 Argonne Rebels brass god) made appearances at rehearsals while on tour and gave us clinics.

'84 was the first year we prevented BD from winning Pacific Procession (SCV's home show), which in some alumnaes' mind is even more important than Finals. We streaked out of CA on second tour and headed into Denver. In the meantime, the East Coast guys in our group were getting us all fired up about seeing PR for the first time. At Denver, GR held us on the busses until the last possible moment, then the call went out: "White pants!" We killed everyone at DATR finals and took 3 (?) of 4 captions. PR was shocked, and BD was left shaking their heads.

Whitewater: at this point the M.O. became that we'd perform in green-striped tunic over green pants (the "usual" look) most of the time. At Whitewater finals, GR called for the slammin' pants, and they did their magic. We cleaned up that field too; I still have chunks of grass in a plastic bag from that one. To answer a previous poster's question, yes, that was the show where the poor Garfield sop fell, taking a bunch of his comrades with him. I watched that horror unfold from the sideline fence as he headed straight toward us. I've only heard one crowd gasp louder than that (the infamous "blown" BD solo from a few years later.) And yes, they did score a 10 in field visual-- GR made a point of telling us this when he read the recaps to us later.

We were riding high, winning all the way to Prelims. What happened, you ask? Quite simply, it rained. A lot. Our warmup had gone really well, as usual. As you see on the prelims tape, we were wearing green over green. So, there we were, trapped under the trees and the rain coming down in buckets, when one of the walkie-talkies the brass staff carried with them suddenly got very active. GR was on the other end, and he was angry...very angry. In addition to the rain, he had learned another horrifying fact: someone, somewhere had misread something, and suddenly we had a MAJOR problem on our hands:

WE WERE LATE. Horribly, horribly, late.

For any of you that witnessed SCV's performance at '82 Prelims as I did, you might recall SCV having to "really haul" down the entry ramp to McGill University Stadium's field because they were late. The performance that followed was average.

Fast forward to 2 years later, and, like that memorable scene from the movie "Ghost" where the really nasty bad demons come out of the ground to take away the spirit of the bad guy responsible for killing Patrick Swayze's character, those demons came out of the ground and gripped the '82 guys who had had the misfortune of having been there. One of them near me said weakly, "Oh sh--, not now...not again..." I got nervous, because (1) I'd witnessed it, and (2) I was now about to live it. It took a few seconds for the full magnitude of our miscue to set in. The stadium was a long ways off, and we had no choice. We hustled our butts to the entrance gate, picking up the running drumline and a completely flummoxed (shellshocked?) guard along the way. In fact, we pretty much ran non-stop all the way to the starting line. I still remember running to the back sideline and continuing down the 50 (the sops got to stop and form their off-the-line arc in the back) with the PA announcer going "SCV...you may begin your 1 minute warmup." (Warmup? Is he trying to humor us??) By this time the crowd had already sensed that something was wrong. We had just enough time to set the form, which I think is evident on the Prelims tape if you're unlucky enough like I am to have one. As Andy (the DM) called us to a ready front, the "you may enter the field in competition" call rang out, and Andy had no choice but to kick off the show. It had been some time since we had blown any air through our horns, and they were dead cold when they came up. That's why we sound like crap for the first few minutes of the show. I've watched the tape only a handful of times, and I cringe every time. We essentially lost Natl's right then and there, as we knew it was ours for the taking (sorry Sam & Robert B)

AFTERMATH: As you might imagine, it was a long quiet bus ride back to the school. Lights out, dead quiet gym. This is going to sound funny, but what took place next ranks as my all-time best moment in my DC career, more so than anything: the gym was one of the arena type, with the stands elevated above the playing floor "pit". It was pitch black, and then "SQUEEEAAAAK!", one of the exit doors up in the stands on the end opened up. Bright light streamed in. A figure stood in the doorway, towering over us. We couldn't see his face or who it was, because of the backlighting. The figure began to speak. The voice began, "Ladies and gentlemen...of the Santa Clara Vanguard...." The voice went on that, on behalf of all the staff, he wanted to apologize to us. He apologized for what took place that afternoon. He apologized that they weren't more on the ball. Then he apologized for the unthinkable: "We want to apologize to you, because we underestimated what this group, SCV's youngest, was capable of. We deliberately 'under' wrote this year's show, because so many of you were new. It was our hope that we could just get you into you daipers, send you out, and that maybe, just maybe, you'd make 5th. By the time Whitewater rolled around, we knew we had committed a huge mistake. Had we known what you were capable of, we would have written a much more demanding show worthy of your talents. For that we are very, truly sorry. One other thing, ladies and gentlemen: no corps...has ever...jumped from fourth in prelims to first in Finals. As I stand here, I am gazing upon the first corps in DCI history...that...will. Goodnight." He stepped back and the door clicked shut, and it was dark again. Several seconds of silence passed, then we erupted into a chorus of "YYYYYEAAAAHS!!!"

The voice in question wasn't GR-- it was Tim's.

In my mind there are only a handful of corps you really don't want to get angry at you....Madison, PR, Boston, Bridgemen....and the group that woke up the following morning. We went to breakfast-- forget the cereal, gimme some gravel. We had silent rehearsal from ####. We had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. We were going to make history, or die trying. For every mistake, no matter how small, we began to do more and more pushups. We were so nutsoid, we did other people's pushups. It all culminated in a final run-through performance that, had we teleported it to the stadium, would have had Sam asking his buddy Dave (French horn Dave?) for his ring instead of the guy on the train I read about in one of his earlier posts. B) As it was, everyone's performances (GC, BD, SCV, PR) were magnificent, and the crowd ate it up. We made BD and GC work for it, and I'd wager that there were more than a few "puckers" when we not only tied with Sam/Robert's group & GC for high brass, but tied GC for high visual as well. If you look at a recap, we "high scored" 9.9s in field brass and field visual, falling a little short on the ensemble side. Where we got killed was in field percussion (usually one of our strengths) and GE (can't argue with that one). Both BD and 27th both had very strong drumlines that year, and that was going to come down to a two horse race. If I could have that night back, I wish our battery had been awarded a few more tenths in FP to get us into the 97.8 range and really give the crowd something to talk about for years to come ("remember that one year when...?") The ex-marching instructor in me also wants another tenth on the EV side, just so that we could have that one to ourselves (GC took GE outright.) I think if there were ever a year where there could have been a been a three-way tie, '84 would have to qualify. Man, that would have been a party! As for the politicking that someone mentioned...well, that was the following (my age out) year, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

One last thing for Sam & Robert: Back in December '80 I rode up from Southern Cal with two friends of mine and auditioned for BD and did pretty well, considering my age at the time. Had I been able to talk (actually, they were more like "spirited conversations") my dad into letting me use his truck to drive up to monthly camps as WD hoped instead of being restricted to a Honda 125 trail bike ("You're not gonna total my truck and kill yourself on I-5!"), my DC path would likely have gone a totally different direction and I'd have fought in the trenches alongside you two. As it was, the kid I got into DC eventually spent his last two years with the Blue Team, aging out in '88. :)

Sorry for the length, everybody!

Edited March 20, 2004 by SCVAlumTofRGuy

[jump]

The irony for SCV in 1984 is that in 1983, we smoked in prelims leaving BD and Garfield (undefeated until then) in a tie for second. Then we went out in finals and did a flat show. In 1984 we botched prelims and came back in finals and did a good show.

1984 was a pretty amazing year for SCV, especially for the hornline. As was mentioned above, all of the leaders in the hornline went to join Gordon Henderson and the Olympics Band. There were a couple horns and quite a few drummers who also went to BD (inluding one pit player who went on to play baritone in BD) This left the hornline with one of, if not the most inexperienced hornlines that SCV had seen since DCI started. We had one member in his fifth year (George Brown, SCVC Director), one in his fourth and and handful in their third. But that hornline could perform!!!!!

From the very first show in San Jose, the Corps would hit the first impact point in Fanfare and Allegro and the crowd would respond. At show after show, we would bring the crowd to their feet at that first impact and then multiple other times as the show progressed

Prelims- The bottom line is, the show was flat and we had some major phasing problems in Tenderland - phasing problems that we had never seen in rehearsals or performances.

Why did it happen? Who Knows.

I don't think that it was due to an inexperienced hornline overwhelmed by semi's. We had gone into every major show that year and we took charge. Even when BD yelled 10 on the ready front at our show (Pacific Procession) because they intended to win our show for the 10th time in a row...sorry Rob & Sam we couldn't let you win that one ;) We won horns at every major show that year including finals (I know it was a three way tie but we can all stilll claim it)...........

Ultimately, I think Sam said it best "I suspect they just chose the wrong time to have a bad show and made it up at finals...that kind of a drop was NOT in character for SCV in 84. They were hammering us until Whitewater... " except for the until Whitewater part. (Sam we hammered you until Nats).

We did come back at Finals and do a great performance. Maybe it wasn't quite the performance that it would have been had we not been shaken the night before but we certainly showed the audience what we had.

Going into Nats, three Corps were fighting for the top spot and trading wins back and forth.

Each of us felt that we had a good chance, if not the best chance to win it.

Ultimately, it came down to .1 between first and second and .6 between first and third, a three way tie for high brass, a tie for high visual and three Corps that turned it on for finals night and took the audience for a ride that they will never forget.

Politics? in 1984? No, I don't believe so. This was just good old throw down the guantlet and let the notes fly drumcorps.

Jeff Pearson

SCV 81-85

Edited March 20, 2004 by jump

[SCVAlumTofRGuy]

Go to bed, Jeff! Only one night owl allowed...

[jump]

You first Morgan.

[GMichael1230]

Wow ! Morgan and Jeff..thank you for possibly two fo the most interesting stories ever on DCP......

~G~

[JFitz19]

Thanks, guys, for the wonderful history from 1984. I was riveted to my computer screen.

[bd5times]

I don't recall the late to Prelims story....interesting.

84 was definitely a great year. Intense corps and intense competition.

Slammin pants, LOL! We knew of that term......and it was used as a bit of motivation to slam SCV in their Slammin pants.

Edited March 20, 2004 by bd5times