Blue Knight and Day!

I know I haven’t posted anything really in a long time, but I thought this would be a good thing to post about. So this summer, my brother is in the Blue Knights Drum Corps, which is pretty much professional marching band. They perform all around the US. The Blue Knights are stationed in Denver, Colorado, so he has flown out there once a month ever since December. Starting the end of May, they don’t go home for three months: they train and rehearse and perform at Drum Corps International contests. Yesterday I got to spend time with them (I’m guessing they number about 200-300 corps members). I made three huge salads for them to have at dinner (which was after they got back from the competition – I ended up not being there when they ate it). I helped another girl in the food trailer wash a whole lot of dishes, and I cleaned tables and countertops. So pretty much what happens when they eat is the corps comes to get their food (which the volunteers in the food trailer help a professional catering chef prepare) and they get their choice of drinks, which is usually water and about three flavors of Gatorade. Then they find shade anywhere (behind a building, in the shadow of one of their tour buses, UNDER A TRUCK) and eat. Then one of the sections a day is assigned trash clean-up. Once I was done helping out in the food trailer, I went to find the horn line practicing. They sounded amazing… And it has been about two months into their tour, and they have four hours of rehearsal a day, so they are all so so so tan. They have the weirdest tans, too, I mean, of course they have the sock tan (they all wear flip-flops when they’re not rehearsing, so you can see everyone’s sock tan) and shorts tan, but they even have hair tans (immediately after they get a haircut), sunglasses/glasses tans, and glove tans. Glove tans sounds kind of weird, but think about it – they’re out in the sun, rehearsing with their instrument for four hours a day. The horns are made out of metal: if you don’t have gloves, the horn is going to get really hot, and you’d cut your hands on the sharper parts. My mom, dad, and I went to the stadium before the corps did. We watched the other drum corps perform. And, just because I can, I will list all of the drum corps names that I know: Phantom Regiment, Cavaliers, Bluecoats, Blue Devils, Blue Knights, Blue Stars, The Academy, Pioneers, Cadets, Madison Scouts, Santa Clara Vanguard, Boston Crusaders, Troopers, Spirit of Atlanta, Carolina Crown, Colts, Crossmen, Genesis… that’s all I know right now. That’s most of them that were there. And because I love critiquing, here is my critique on the particular corps: Phantom Regiment. I have heard so much about them and have only dreamed of seeing them in person. Well, honestly, they were kind of a disappointment, their show was kind of generic, and if they weren’t the one and only PHANTOM REGIMENT, I wouldn’t have been so excited during their show. Cavaliers… were my favorite. They are an all-male corps. They’re like a cult, though, from what I’ve heard! You aren’t considered a Cavalier until you get into the corps for a second year. And apparently they have their phones taken away and can’t call home or anything during the three month time period. And at 10:00pm they are gathered and quizzed over information from this book, random trivia about the Cavaliers. You need to know who was drum major in what year, and all that crazy stuff. It doesn’t seem like a fun place to be, but they’re good at marching and I liked their show, so, yeah. Their show was really cool… Their show’s theme was ‘The Secret Society’. They all came out in hooded capes, which they wore for the first act. They took the capes off while they were under these props that were tilted posters…probably for the use of changing behind. But when they came back out, they had blindfolds on! At first, I thought they were real blindfolds, and I was AMAZED that they could still take their formations with them on, but then I realized (after asking my dad about it) that they were probably made from a thin material that they could see out of. Their formations included a triangle, which was kind of the theme visual, as they had triangular prop and, at one point, made a huge triangle tent that the colorguard used to run into, take off their jackets, and come out with just the undercoat on… Over all, it was really cool. Bluecoats! I have always looked forward to watching the Bluecoats play. I liked their show, there was this storyline where a girl with a red balloon comes out, and she looks like she’s looking for something, and she sees the corps marching around and tries to catch the attention of them, but no one pays attention to her, and she can’t catch up with any of them. Finally, she taps the shoulder of a drummer, and he turns around and… I forget what he does… but at one point another colorguard girl came up and popped the red balloon. Then a guy came to the girl and gave her another red balloon, and they ran around the field holding hands, and it kind of had a Peter Pan feel to it… he showed her around and whatnot, then he disappeared somewhere… Maybe something happened to the balloon or something, but somewhere near the end, the drum guy from before gave the girl (who somehow had lost the balloon again) the red balloon back… It was an American theme (‘To Look for America’). Blue Devils, Blue Devils…. They ended up snatching first place. I honestly didn’t enjoy their show much, to me they didn’t sound particularly good, and I didn’t like the random vertical poles that were the main props in their show… They were just moved around and tilted, and I didn’t really understand why they were necessary… but apparently the judges did, so that’s that. The Cadets (their theme was ‘Side by Side’) colorguard had uniformed that were the exact colors of Taco Bell. Seriously. And they had these huge boxes that were their props… They just pushed the boxes around… no one, like, came out of them like I thought would happen. I guess it was kind of cool when they formed SXS (abbreviation of their show theme name). I really didn’t think they sounded good, either. The sound they produced somehow reminded me of unsanded wood. (Then again, my mind does make really strange connections… for instance, I think Robert Downey Jr. looks like ketchup, and Harry Styles looks like a can of tomato soup. Not that it’s a bad thing, I do like ketchup and… well, I actually don’t care much for tomato soup, but tomato soup isn’t a BAD thing, you know?) Santa Clara Vanguard did ‘Le Miserables’. I really liked their music. Their marching wasn’t really that memorable, they didn’t do many fancy formations or anything. But I did really like their music. Boston Crusaders! They were a VERY pleasant surprise. Them and the Cavaliers were my favorites (besides Blue Knights, cause my brother is in it, haha). Their show was so creative! There were many non-generic things that they did. For instance, they broke up into pairs and did really cool partner forms where, like, one would lay on the ground and put their feet on their partner’s back, and their knees would bend and their partner would lean back really far… things like that. There was a lead colorguard/character (she started off in the center of the field, looking all confused-like, then the whole corps came running out towards her, then they all fell down…and lay in the middle of the field… before they got up to proceed with their show. One really creative thing they did was the other colorguards made a staircase out of the poles of their flags, and the lead girl just walked up the staircase. My favorite part, though, was when the corps were sitting on the ground and they all took off their jackets and put them on the ground… then they got up and walked away, but when they left, you see that their jackets formed the word ‘RISE’, the name of their show. So, yeah, I REALLY liked the Boston Crusaders. The Troopers were a big surprise, though, their name and outfits looked generic and almost even pathetic… but theirs was the first show I REALLY enjoyed! I think they had some sort of a Native American theme to it… and I don’t really remember the highlights of the show, because I was blown away by the Boston Crusaders, who performed directly after the Troopers. My brother said he really liked Carolina Crown’s show, but I honestly don’t remember it that much. I know that they played part of ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ by Richard Strauss (the triumphant song most usually identified with epic suspense) near the beginning. That’s all the critiquing I have. If I left one out, that means I felt they were generic and there’s nothing much to say about them. So how it ended up… poor Pioneers got dead last place, that’s the only reason why I know their name (I didn’t see their show). It was pretty suspenseful, as they announced from 22nd place (last place) up to 1st, and we were REALLY happy when the Troopers (I *think*) got 11th place, because that meant that the Blue Knights placed in the top ten! The Boston Crusaders got 10th place (which almost surprised me, the fact that they beat the Blue Knights, I just thought I thought the BK was better because I was biased) and the Blue Knights ended up with 9th place. The Cavaliers got 8th, which REALLY surprised me, cause I did think the Cavaliers were THAT much better… but I really really REALLY REALLY do hope that BK beats the Cavaliers at some point. Carolina Crown got 2nd, which left me very unsatisfied, because that meant the Blue Devils got away with first. Oh, whale. :/ I don’t really agree with that, but… all right, whatever. After the show, I helped pack up the Blue Knights merchandise. I rolled a huge seven-foot rack all the way down to where the trailers were… After rolling the rack into the Blue Knights trailer, I stood in the parking lot, in awe of my surroundings. I mean, there we were, right next to the trailers for Phantom Regiment, Bluecoats, Carolina Crown, the Cavaliers… It was especially cool how the Phantom Regiment trailer must have carried all the equipment for their 2008 World Championship-winning ‘SPARTACUS’, which, by the way, I cannot watch the closer of without being irrationably excited. I was going to get pictures of all the big name trailers, but, meh. Ya know. It’s all part of being in the staff for a drum corps. Next year, if my brother goes back to drum corps, no matter which one it is (I hope he can make a higher corps), I would really like to spend at least a week with them. Because if just one day could hold as much as it did… think about how much more there is in store!