BIG WIN FOR DEVILS IN DENVER

Happy 50th birthday Thierry! I was invited to come to my friend Thierry Plume’s 50th birthday party in Auvelais (Belgium) today, but I’m just a little too far out of the way to pop in at his party. Have a good one my friend! I used to teach at the Borsalino drum & bugle corps he ran in the French-speaking part of Belgium.

Today was the “big day” for the Blue Devils. It was the first time they would go against one of their closest rivals from the East Coast : The Cadets were in town and were to perform at the Denver “Drums Along the Rockies” show in Invesco Field – the beautiful stadium of the Denver Broncos football team.

We’re housed at a high school in Brighton, not too far from Denver. Rehearsals are going really well. All the staff are on tour now, so that will give the corps a great boost. In between meals I watched some of rehearsal today. They’re all in good shape!

We have wifi on the staff buses, so I can easily upload text here on my weblog, and a lot of photos to the Blue Devils mediabox. And of course I get to check my email and see what my best friends are up to on Facebook.
Unfortunately we got shut down today, because we heard that we went way over the download limit, so the corps will get a bill for the extra used Gigabytes. They’re working on changing the account into a much bigger capacity, so we will probably be OK in the next few days.
Good thing, because I’m desperate to chat!!

Dinner was once again delicious. We had chicken fillets from the grill basted with barbecue sauce. And we turned the leftover baked potatoes in a tasty potato salad. I then pitched a ride to the stadium with Bill Seeley in the equipment truck.
The parking officials gave us parking lot #14. That must be a sign….



The buses left about half an hour after we did. I picked up my media credentials at the will call office and made my way into the stadium. DCI Championships were here in 2004. It definitely is one of the best stadiums for this activity. Not only as a facility for the corps, but also for us photographers! The light (for TV broadcast) is absolutely fantastic. I don’t even have to go into the high ISO at all !

I saw the Colts and Glassmen for the first time tonight. The Troopers were here too. They’re aiming for keeping that Finals spot they regained last year! And I think they have a good chance at doing so.

Ran into a lot of corps people I have met over the many years I have been coming out to DCI. Always good to see familiar faces while on tour! Chatted with percussion virtuosos Ralph Hardimon for a little bit. Also saw Fred Morris and Rod Owens again. Rod used to be Glassmen’s tour director (also when they came to Europe) and is now the tour director for the Troopers.
At the show my fellow Drum Corps World photographer Pat (from Boston) was shooting for the magazine. I promised Steve to send in a bunch of shots during tour as well.

Blue Devils were on right after the intermission. That was kind of odd, having the defending champions play first after the break, followed by three other top-corps.



Bringing the mirrors into the stadium was quite the experience. The tunnel was too low to bring them in straight up, so a couple of staff members tilted every one of them to make sure nothing got damaged. This took too much time, but contest director Tom Hope (former Freelancers director) told the corps it would not affect them as far as penalties or anything were concerned.
The show was very well received by the crowd! And after the very good runthrough I saw this afternoon, this performance set the standard for the rest of the season.

Santa Clara Vanguard’s production of Bartók just doesn’t do it for me. It is by far as good and entertaining as last year’s SCV show. Thomas Claessen is doing a fine job in the tenorline. I briefly saw him after the show outside the stadium. Our mutual friend Marc Lust from Oostende is coming in in two weeks to volunteer with SCV. It will be fun hanging out with him as well.

Cadets perform ToySouldier. Lots of gimmicks in their show this year! The first part of the show all color guard are dressed the same as the drummers and brass, which makes the corps look huge! Later they take their jackets off to show a bright fuchsia top. Fast drill and spectacular formation rotations once again prove to be Cadets’ trademark. I especially liked the opening segment when they used Herald Trumpets.

The Drums Along the Rockies show is sponsored by host-corps Blue Knights. It’s been a long, very long time since I last liked them as much as I like them this year! Their musical selection is very accessible, and their whole show is just nice to watch.

Everyone in the corps was a bit nervous tonight because this was the first time they would meet the Cadets. Well,… when the scores were announced it took away quite a bit of the tension.
Blue Devils: 88.0 points versus Cadets: 85.7 points.



We’re back at the school in Brighton now. It’s well after midnight and we have just finished (leftovers) snack. Tomorrow is a free day. The corps will do laundry first. We will pack, wait for them to get back at lunchtime, and then head to downtown Denver. Tomorrow is the World Cup Finals. I was going to try and watch it with some of the trumpet players and some tubas in a sportsbar, but with the schedule we have for tomorrow that’s not going to happen. We will only go to Denver somewhere between 1:30 and 2PM.
The good new is that our bus also has satellite TV, so we will watch it on the bus. Let’s hope our team does well.

Enjoy,

HK