Wicked Drumline Conquers Seattle!

[kmansdrummin]

The Pacific Alliance Drumline performed at the Seattle Seafair Torchlight Parade Saturday night. (The biggest and best parade in Washington State.) It was a great performance, with a lot of love from or fans, and fellow performers. We were without a hornline, or colorguard, but we powered our way through. (Thankfully we had a drum major.) We had a compliment of 9 snares, (#10 got way delayed at the airport and couldn't attend), 4 quints, and 5 basses. We had our regular Streetbeat, "Rushing to California", (the first part is in 7/8 time and is based on Rush's tune "Subdivisions"), and is more like a drum solo than a streetbeat, (so I'm told), and a great bass drum diddy "Nutbutter" that John Beisner (80 and 81 SCV alumni snare) pulled out of his hat from his Vanguard days, and our drum feature, "Oliver's Wicked Clock" based on the Vanguards '75 drum solo, "The Clock".

Being #98 in the parade, we had time to warm-up and make any changes. It was the first time all 9 snares got together, but we fit nicely. The Seattle Seahawks Drumline came to check us out while we were playing the Renegades Triplet Diddle, and they liked what they saw. It was coming out clean. We also had a quick appearance from Washington State University's mascot "Butch".

So we went through all the stuff, working out the kinks, (I call them out-takes), and by 8:30 or so were ready to hit the street. It came together. One of the benefits of going on late, is the weather is cooler. It was a cooler day anyway, so it helped greatly. The downside of going on late, is we were screwed on TV coverage. We were coming up, they went to commercial, then they came back when we were ending the accelerando in "Oliver's Wicked Clock", or drum feature, and the announcer read our bio, and continued to talk. (Why they do that I'll never know. I even wrote, "let's listen" at tne end.) We played the drum feature one more time kind of under a bridge. (loud with a little echo), and mangaged to get a pretty good video recording of it, (lighting is weird, and a little dark).

But overall, we sounded great with our Ludwig Silverdot Snaredrum heads, (sounds like a SNARE DRUM), awesome tenor line, and the best bass drumline we've had in years. it was a total sucess. The crowd was diggin' it, and gave us great vibes. One comment, "I used to be a drummer, and I saw a lot of drumlines toniight in bands, but you were by far, BY FAR, the best". After feeling beat to ####, (really really, sore back), I was thankful for the compliment. The overall mood after the parade was one of happiness, which is what this is all about. Performing wiith friends and people you generally like. It makes all the hard work worth it, (and we did have some hard practices).

While I coordinate this drumlne, I am more the organizer. This drumline is extremely talented (lots of drum corps alumni), and it is a total team effort. There is much combined wisdom, and everybody's imput is encouraged, and as a result of that, we get great ideas and get even better. We are a total team, and appreciate each other. You can have great looking and sounding drums, but if there's nobody to play them, then you're screwed.

It took me a day to recover, (man, how did I do corps when I was a kid? Oh, that's right it was 30 years ago.). Overall, it was a great, great time, and I can't wait for next year. More on that later......

Stay Wicked and Rock On!!!!

Kevin Nordeen ^0^ ^0^ B) ^0^ ^0^