Parking Lot Drum Line Battles

[dbc03]

Sadly, I believe you're correct.

If I were a member I would be pretty ###### that I was paying $1500 and doing drum battles instead of cleaning the show like I paid for.

[AlbionNY Drum Line]

In 1998 Lake Erie Regiment's drumline came over to where we were warming up. They stood together, about 20 feet back from our line, talked amongst eachother, laughed and walked away. We were furious. I think we beat them by two full points in drums that night.

if that happend to cru,,, things wouldnt be good

[84skyrydr]

Back in the days of the early 80s, I remember the Spirit bass drummers getting together after the retreats were done and playing songs in the parking lot. A lot of kids would go and hang by them. They were awesome. You can easily entertain each other without having to prove anything. And yes, seeing the drums going freestyle after a show would really be cool, but now days all the corps are so eager to get loaded and head off to the next show, that there isn't a whole lot of time for that.

[Jeff Ream]

true. now it's all about more down time...isnt that why the whole retreat only at big shows philosophy came about?

[Snapettes Mom]

I don't think the statement that drumlines want to use every hour to rehearse isn't 100% true. Probably more like 99%. : ) I have heard stories about SCV's '79 drum line just stopped practicing a couple of weeks before finals because they had nothing left to clean. True to your point all the lines I have played in have made every hour count. Meeting in between, before and after rehearsals including taking the drums on the bus and getting off first for bio breaks and cleaning parts next to the bus for another 20 minutes before continuing on the road indeed help.

I just wanna see the Buc's vs. MBI and The Cadets vs. Blue Coats do it... Cavies vs. SCV. MAD vs. BD etc.

If they put on the DVD's I would probably buy one $$$

Mom

Edited December 25, 2005 by Snapettes Mom

[BeachDrums]

If I were a member I would be pretty ###### that I was paying $1500 and doing drum battles instead of cleaning the show like I paid for.

I don't believe anyone here was suggesting a corps not work on cleaning up their show. I didn't even suggest "drum battles," as you call them. I won't repeat myself with one of my previous posts. No need to be "######."

[Morgoth Bauglir]

an hour early will take away from rehearsal time. face it, all the energy is directed at the field show. show me a drum staff willing to give up rehearsal time perfecting the show to go engage in a chop fest.

We have a winner.

I see this as being a colossal waste of time. The original post mentioned doing this in the lot before shows? After just aging out and marching 3 differnt corps, I was kinda under the impression that the point of warming up in the lot was to....warm up. You know, prepare for the actual show? With getting rid of retreat in order to give everyone, especially the younger corps, more time to actually get good, this would be a huge waste. A corps schedual is already set to the minute. Waiting an extra 3 minutes because the pit needs to shower can throw things off tremendously. Have the drums meet an hour early would be impossible. That would mean the whole corps would have to stop practice an hour early to load the equipment truck. And of course the hornline would be waiting around for that hour. They can't play too much for fear of blowing chops. That's also an hour early for the volunteers to start cooking. An hour less time for the drivers to sleep. An hour more time for DCI to reserve the arena/parking lot area, ect Logistically, it's just not worth it. Combined with the fact that the whole point of the summer is to perfect a field show to be viewed by thousands, and hundreds of thousands on video. I know that if that happened while I was a member, it would be a waste of time.

The closest thing I can think of to this that was actually worth it was when 6 drumlines (G-men, X-men, Coats, Crown, Boston, and Cadets) all warmed up together on the 3rd of July for some parade. That was a frickin blast! And since it was before a parade, it was no big deal that we wern't focused on the show. We played a bunch of east stuff together, and then played our streetbeats for each other.

[Snapettes Mom]

Nice comeback but I'm not convinced the logistical thang is that difficult. Don't most corps break for dinner at the end of a afternoon block. After dinner it's get your stuff cleaned up and ready to leave on the bus for the show by a certain time. (Possibly a couple of hours) I think this year the level competition will be better than ever and a lot of lines will not get the credit they deserve on the field. In the lot playing one on one to each other cuz they can sounds cool to me. But then again it's something you would want to do. Sorry to hear it's not for you.

Merry Xmas,

Mom

PS. I'm out on vaca for a few days.

Edited December 25, 2005 by Snapettes Mom

[Morgoth Bauglir]

I have never had more than 1.5 hours in 3 different corps. It is usually 1 hour or 1 and 15 minutes. A couple of hours? I hope you were kidding. And no matter how much time it is, extra hours don't come out of nowhere. If a group is going to get to the show site an hour earlier, everything else would have to either go faster to make up for that hour, or be pushed forwards an hour. And In my experiance with 3 differnt div 1 corps, everything already goes as fast and frantic as possible. So that sadly would mean everything would need to get moved up an hour. Logistics don't lie. I am not saying it wouldn't work with that sacrifice. I am saying you would be lucky to find maybe 1 corps staff that is willing to waste that hour on somthing not related to the show. And I am glad they wouldn't be. This is coming from a drummer who loves watching lines in the lot. Except I like to see how good they are. Not what phat beats they can throw down. I wanna see how fast they can grid flam 5s, and how even their 8s are. Not listen to street beats.

Edited December 25, 2005 by G-Cym

[PhantomFanT10]

Ah yes I forgot about that...it's been forever since I've seen the movie...hmm, that just kinda ruined my whole sanctioned event plan then.

As for the whole time thing if they expanded a competition of that sort, it would probably be way to long for that and I don't know when you could even fit it in during the "regular" season of Drum Corps. And I didn't mean to vary from the original topic...just curious.

Wait...Are you saying that something you thought was a good idea before instantly became a bad idea when you remembered that the same thing happened in a glorified, sold-out bandoflick? I just don't understand the mentality of some people. The crowd would love to see two drumlines in a friendly exchange of licks/cadences just as they would love to see two hornlines trading pieces on and off. I'm sure no one would get worked up over it, it would just be something FUN. To make it a sanctioned event, aside from being a bando sin would kinda make it even more lame than many claim it to be already. The BEST rep is a street (or lot) rep.