Dada, Ta-da!

DCI Finals

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Lucas Oil Stadium

Bro and I had breakfast downstairs at Pullman's Restaurant.  Why do restaurants always serve so many pancakes at a time?  I can never finish...except, sometimes, at Cracker Barrel, because those are my favorite.

Then we made our way to watch the Indy Arts! parade.  The weather has been unseasonably chilly, so Bro was wearing his jacket.  I was wearing white pants and a tank top, and wanted to sit down, so I sat on my hoodie and braved the chill as we sat in the shade.  Cascades APPARENTLY found their plumes, as they were wearing them with their shakos.  The Colt Cadets had their morph-suited cymbal players, and I still wondered how hot they felt, even though we were in the shade. Pacific Crest was the only corps to actually play real parade music instead of their show, and the color guard also had a routine, so it is not surprising that they eventually won the Grand Champions trophy of the parade.  I forgot to look for the horn player whose arm was in a sling last night instead of holding his/her instrument.

Way to go, PC!

Then it took a long time for the horn players to assemble on the steps of the war memorial, and the Blue Stars' DM conducted them in a special arrangement of Simple Gifts.  Bro and I were not thrilled with this arrangement, but it was still really cool to see all of those horns in one place.

Bunch of Brass

Mike, Kaitlyn & Bro

When we returned to the hotel, Bro's friend Mike was there in the lobby with his daughter, Kaitlyn.  We went to Saigon, a Vietnamese restaurant, for lunch.  That was yummy, except Kaitlyn didn't like one of the spices in her shrimp fried rice.  The rest of us enjoyed our bun (cold vermicelli) dishes.  The Brickyard was on our way back to the hotel, so Mike took us inside the Indianapolis Speedway.  That place is friggin' huge.  We were able to watch some motorcyclists speed around the track.  I'm really glad that we finally made it there, because we'd been talking about it ever since 2008, but haven't rented a car these past few years.

Mike and Kaitlyn were also going to attend Finals, so they bought their tickets, and then we walked over to the place where the corps would be warming up before their shows.  We were too early, though, and saw one of the buses arriving just as we were walking back to LOS.  It's nice that the convention center was right there, so that we could walk through the huge air-conditioned building to get back to the stadium.  It had finally warmed up a bit, so we were grateful for that.

The seats where Bro and I were sitting were in the 5th tier, along the 15 yard line, in row 1.  Do you know what that means?  Yes, we had a desk!  It's the simple pleasures, people.  I like to have a place to put all of my blogging supplies. :)  When I bought a bottle of water at concessions, they took off the cap.  Little did they know that I had brought my own.  Thanks for the tip, Bro!  

Unfortunately, the USMC drum corps was unable to attend due to transportation issues.  That was quite a bummer, because Finals is not as great without them.  So the Hellcats played for us yet again.  They played patriotic songs, including "Over There" and "This is My Country", then played that arrangement of the "Star-Spangled Banner" that we don't really like very much.

The directors of Blue Devils B and Madison Scouts won leadership awards.

InPact played "Live for Music" with American Idol contestant Shaun Canon.  That was a lot of set-up and work for just one song.  Shaun Canon does a lot of performances around the country to support music education, and he used to be in a marching band in high school, so he naturally likes drum corps and supports the activity.  Another big supporter is Janina Gavankar from "True Blood", whom actually auditioned for Phregiment back in the day, but was accepted to Yale and  went there instead.  She has a bunch of pictures from Finals weekend on her FB site.  I love that she's a drum corps fan.  I don't even know her, but I watched True Blood for a couple of seasons before it got to be too much for me.

Oregon Crusaders, Open Class Champions, performed their show in exhibition.  I like how the bass drummers bow before their final push.

The Sun Will Come Out for Martha

DCI's sponsors were recognized.  There was a special recognition for Fred J. Miller, of the uniform company in his name, whom passed away this year.  His widow was present, and I tried not to cry during the standing ovation.

Now, on to the big show!

XMEN

XMen's Signature Marquis Cross

I really like how those blue double flags look like water when they wave them.  Oh, those animal print flags represent animals!  And the rifle guard members are the hunters.  I love how I didn't figure this out until I was watching from our farthest vantage point of the weekend.  Duh.

SPIRIT 

Lucky Sevens

They formed a bunch of 7s because they are Vegas.  In their opening formation, they formed a triangle at center field, and we decided that it was the Luxor, with the Colts helmet as the beacon.

BLUE KNIGHTS

Phoenix

I love how they do the change in their shakos to the bright red color.  Congrats, Stravinsky winners!  They were the only corps that played Stravinsky to make it to Finals.  Oh, no.  A horn player fell down.

MADISON SCOUTS

Madison Reframed

Oh, Scouts, why do you have to disappoint me so with not forming my favorite fleur-de-lis?  The dude in back of us says they should just do Malaguena every year.  Their choir corps sounded really good.

BO CRU

My fave flags from this show

Go, guard!  They were excellent.

CAVALIERS

Swaggerific

The bass drummers set their drums down and stand beside the tenors to play them, too.  

<Intermission>

It's weird to see the Cavaliers prior to intermission, instead of way afterward.

Awards from the parade were announced:

Best Visual: Academy

Best Dressed Color Guard: Music City

Best Cymbal Line: Pioneer

Best Drum Major: Legends and Glassmen

Grand Champions: Pacific Crest

BLOO

Masque

The thing is, they don't have their shakos off for very long, so you can't see the masks on the corps for a long time before they throw them off.  Oh, I think those flags during the talking portion are from the movie "Mask".  Bro feels like they were flat today.  They tend to lose me as soon as they start with the talking.

SCV

SCV Shield

I had post-show teariness.  It started with "Music of the Night", and then it just kept going.  I'll miss this show.  I'll be wearing out that portion of the CD for sure.

CADETS

O Tannenbaum

Even their pit tractor is decorated with Christmas lights.  One of the solos was a little flat or something.  They formed two bells.  It's amazing how much more you can see from up high.  While the color guard does their awesomely unison drill with the silver flags, they are in a formation of a Christmas tree.  I was concentrating so much on the beauty of their spinning that I didn't notice that before.  

PHREGIMENT

Phreg Chev

I remembered to yell for Mike before the show started.  They entered the field from all four corners to set up.  I don't think that they did that on the other 2 nights.  Still no kick at the chevron?  Bring it back, please.  Beautiful "Nessun Dorma" solo.  The phans yelled "SUTA!" after the costume change.  

CROWN

Crown's Crown

If they could win on audience noise alone, they would totally get it.  Wow.  They only use 2 flag designs throughout the show.  I see a bunch of Superman symbols in the show now that I'm looking for them, even on one of the flag designs.  Also, Batman, and maybe Spider-man.  Ohhhhh.

BD

Those horns are incredible.  I forgot to watch the pit girl bang on that weird metal thing.  I like when they roll all the hoops to center field at the end.

FINALE

The Hellcats played as the corps took the field.  SCV didn't do their usual precision drum-setting, which disappointed me, but maybe it was for the better since I wasn't hearing the Marines' cadence.

The Cadets DM led all of the corps in that arrangement of Simple Gifts that we don't like.  Are you sensing a theme here?  I don't know why people mess with the classics when they really don't need to do so.  I told Bro that SCV Age-outs were probably thinking "Well, this is crap!  What the hell is this?!"  I mean, hello, their 2009 show was soooo much better than that dreck.

SCV playing Simple Gifts

Then they played a video on the jumbotron that SCV couldn't watch because they're so disciplined and just look straight ahead.

DCI Finalists

The caption awards were presented by the remaining founders of DCI.  "Here we go," said Brandt Crocker.

SCORES

12) 84.0 -- CROSSMEN

Jim Jones Leadership Award: Shawn Fay-Lynn of Madison Scouts

11) 84.4 -- SPIRIT OF ATLANTA

10) 86.7 -- BLUE KNIGHTS

Zingali Color Guard Award: Blue Devils

9) 88.0 -- MADISON SCOUTS

Visual Award: (in alphabetical order) Blue Devils and Carolina Crown 

 (So they both won visual at finals?  The rule is that the caption awards are calculated based on an average of Prelims, Semis and Finals.  If there is a tie, then the tiebreaker is whomever won the caption at finals.  The recaps tell a different story, which is that BD won visual at finals).

8) 88.85 -- CAVALIERS

Jim Ott Brass Award, presented by Harold Ott: Well, first Mr. Crocker announced that BD got it, but it was actually Crown.  Oops.  That announcement led to a very loud cheer from the Crown fans.  I felt sorry for BD at that moment.

7) 89.1 -- BOSTON CRUSADERS

Sanford Percussion Award: Blue Devils

6) 92.55 -- BLUECOATS

General Effect -- Blue Devils

5) 94.45 -- SANTA CLARA VANGUARD

4) 95.05 -- CADETS

3) 96.55 -- PHANTOM REGIMENT

2) 97.65 -- CAROLINA CROWN

1) 98.7 -- BLUE DEVILS

You've gotta respect the execution of that show, whether you like it or not.  They are amazing.

ENCORE

Blue Devils, the field is yours!  

They got the BD faithful going with their F-tuning warmup.  I haven't heard this in forever!  OK, 2 years.  But still, that's a long time for that.  

Drums did some warm-up of their own.

Then the horn players sang something.

Dada.  One more time.  This is the last time I'll get to see that girl beat the hell out of that metal thing.  Crazy brass runs:  I mean, that DIDN'T win best brass?!?

BD's hoops and horsies

I still don't like their color guard hats.  I do like when they roll the hoop up the backs of 3 CG members, and the last one in the line catches the hoop.

S: I really don't understand this show.  (regarding the jackets) Why do they put them on?

R:  Because there's a hanger in a frame.

Well, that pretty much hilariously sums up their show!

We returned to our hotel, and I didn't sleep well, probably because I was worried that I would miss my early flight.

The next morning, I talked to a guy as we waited at the Indy Go stop.  He also goes to Finals every year, and he marched with Boston Crusaders.  He asked for my honest opinion about BD's show, and I told him that I hated it at first, then liked it, then hated myself for liking it.  He said that his friend feels the same way.  So I think that was all on purpose.  Well played, BD.  And congratulations on another successful year!

As usual, I had some drum corps folk on my flights home.  At the Las Vegas airport, I went up to a group of SCV guys, and told them that they made me cry...and that it was a good thing.  They smiled and thanked the crazy lady.

Now is the time for drum corps withdrawal.