A GREAT DAY IN DALLAS WITH SOME GREAT FRIENDS

This day was due a looooooooooooooooooong time ago! I met Charles back in 2005 or 2007 I think. Charles is an excellent photographer and had been shooting BD a lot too. But his real job is spectacular! He is a model maker (or better yet: architectural model-making specialist) . I had only seen pictures of his work, and found it hard to believe I was looking at a model… I honestly thought it was a real beach resort!

I have seen lots models of various types of buildings, but this is by far THE BEST state of the art work I have ever seen in this line of work!

Charles picked me up at the school and we had a lengthy conversation about a lot of things on our way to Dallas. Once at the studio I was completely blown away by his and Susie’s work. Absolutely stunning! Right now they are working on an assignment for which they are creating a model of London’s Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace ánd Tower Bridge. I wish I could see the final results to that! I got a nice preview though.

After the tour of the studio I helped them out finding some additions to their new kitchen. Funnily enough I think we can find all their needs back in Europe. Apparently it’s hard to get plinths and accessories here in the States, especially with their classy taste! I’m sure I can hook them up with the right companies back home.

Charles and Susie took me out for an excellent meal at Mi Cocina, a Mexican restaurant. Wow… that was really good ! And far too much of course! Hooray for the doggie bags (another thing that’s not all that well-known in the Netherlands).

We met the corps when they were about to leave the school in Little Elm. We rode to the stadium in Denton with them, following the buses. My All-Access pass helped getting us a parking spot near the buses.

The Denton show was a good one! Cadets, Blue Knights, Blue Stars, Cavaliers, Phantom Regiment, Blue Devils… You certainly don’t hear me complain. The advantage of volunteering with a top-corps also is that you get to attend top-contests!

Enjoyed seeing Krijn and Melanie again. Still having a hard time spotting her in the show though. Cavies are a bit disappointing this season. Phantom has a BEAUTIFUL show. Lots of focus on the guard. Bluecoats,… well,.. maybe I have to see them again a few times. I start liking the Cadets show a lot more than I did when I first saw them. No matter what they play, always a fine corps!

Thank you Charles and Susie for a wonderful day! I should definitely come and visit you when you’re in Bali !

Enjoy,

HK

LITTLE ELM REHEARSAL DAY & WALMART

Today I spent most of the day at the school in Devils Food (the nickname for our foodtruck). It was a busy morning having the food order come in. We usually try to get the truck to arrive either well before breakfast or well after, but for some reason they always manage to show up right AT breakfast,… as if we don’t have anything else to do at that time.

I baked a few cakes, which turned our rather nice if I may say so. Have had a number of requests already for some special cakes. I don’t think we will be doing too many birthday cakes this year.

One of the BD alumni members is a representative for the Monster energy drinks. he shows up at the Little Elm school every year with his Monster truck filled with cans for the members and a special stash for us (the food crew). This year it was 600 cans for the corps (at truck stops they are sold 2/$4!) and I think we got about 100. I especially like the coffee-kind (Java Monster Kona Blend). And I never drink regular coffee!

Rehearsal today was at the beautiful school district stadium. A hot day! (as usual when we’re in Texas!) The corps made “sack lunches” which were stored and taken to the stadium around lunchtime, so we didn’t get to see the corps during the day.

Spaghetti on the menu for dinner! They always love a good pasta. You should see some of those plates! My god,… as if they’re feeding a whole family. Some go crazy with the Shriracha hot sauce as well ! My kind of meal! Add hot sauce!

After dinner we got a ride to Walmart on the equipment truck trailer from driver Brenda. Mike Trotta is here too and came along on our Walmart-hunt. He’s touring with us this week until Houston, helping out in the souvie trailer. I love Walmart, but for some reason ended up buying only a few things this time.

Brenda dropped me off at the stadium. I took some pictures of rehearsal. Again,… some nice changes in the show.

An excited about going to Dallas tomorrow. Charles will pick me up at 10AM.

Enjoy,

HK

BUS BREAKDOWN

The ultimate nightmare of every corps on tour! But you still hear stories about these from pretty much every corps. This year Blue Devils had quite the experience. It turned out not to be a very big problem after all (for the bus that is) but it definitely changed the schedule a bit and the drive to Little Elm (Texas).

At about 3AM (I was still awake) we pull over to the side of the highway, and phone calls are made between our bus and corps manager Pete Emmons in the motor home, a few miles behind us.

Apparently the lead bus (Funliner) had some issues and had to stop, so all vehicles stop. The Souvie truck/trailer was travelling with us. That vehicle took the exit, went through the toll-booth and came back the other direction, but Toby (the driver) told us to make a U-turn BEFORE the toll-booth and go back. The funny thing was, he had explained the situation to a cop at the toll-booth, and we made the U-turn seeing the patrol car right there at the booth, so you can imagine our driver (Warner) got a little nervous.

When we got to the buses (after another U-turn – funny you can do this on a highway, probably not supposed to though…) the problem seemed to have been solved, because everyone was ready to roll again. Well,… within two miles we all stopped again. It was definitely a bus-breakdown.

All members on that bus were to be divided on the other vehicles. We would get 13 extra people on “The Nest” (our staff-bus). The other staff bus got a bunch too, a few extra members on the motor home, and the rest had to travel on the other two member buses (I really feel sorry for those guys!)

Before they moved to the other vehicles we (six of us on the support staff bus) helped move all the members’ luggage from the bus into the souvie truck & trailer. I guess the whole operation took about an hour before we could continue our way to Texas (another 400 miles or so).

Once we got to the school the truck drivers had cereals and stuff ready for everyone to eat. Because of the delayed arrival, the afternoon block was cancelled. Everyone got to sleep in a few extra hours till 4PM. That meant a short rehearsal day with only the evening block at the school district stadium. Kind of weird waking up and having dinner being served right away.

I added a little DADA to the mashed potatoes. (In general I have become known here at BD for adding things to the food here that normally don't always go in...)

The Little Elm High School we’re staying at is probably my favourite school building of any of the tours. We come back here every year. I posted about the school here on the blog a few years ago too. It’s HUGE! I got the know the band director Frank well too over the years.

A great thing this school provides for the members is the Walmart/Starbucks-runs they do on their school shuttle bus. The band director or his assistant drive the shuttle back and forth to the shopping area nearby during the breaks, and early in the morning before rehearsal starts. Great service!

My dear friend Charles Kendrick (who lives in Dallas) had come to watch tonight’s rehearsal. Too bad I wasn’t there. Fortunately he stopped by the school. So good to see him again! Last time was in 2010. He has been trying to “steal” me away from the corps and take me to Dallas to show me his work and studio. Unfortunately it never worked out, but guess what… I am spending the day with him and his wife Susie in Dallas this Thursday!

Enjoy,

HK

JUBAL MEMBERS MARCHING DCI

This year marks a record!
Jubal has 7 members marching with DCI World Class corps this summer! Unfortunately in Minneapolis I missed Glassmen’s performance, but did get to see Demy, Krijn and Melanie. Tonight I got to see Demy and Krijn again. Before tonight’s show Silvio, who had only flown to the States to join the Colts last Wednesday, told me he was going to march the very last segment of the show only tonight, even though he had learnt most of the drill.


This was the Colts’ home-show, so they were going on last after the Blue Devils. A pretty good crowd attendance tonight, and quite responsive too.


The Colts Cadets opened the show. Very interesting cymbal line outfits! The Madison Scouts blew the house down. Good to see they’re back where they belong. After a few down years they have definitely regained their “crowd’s pleaser” position. What a cool show! Martijn, one of the Juliana mellophone players is marching Scouts for the second year in a row.

Spirit of Atlanta takes the crowd along on a trip to Las Vegas. Huge stacks of roulette/poker chips form little podiums used by both brass and guard.
Krijn and Demy fit in really well in both Blue Stars’ and Boston Crusaders’ baritone lines.


Blue Devils have made quite some changes this week and once again walked away with a massive win.

Chatted a little bit with my fellow Jubal-friends after the show. They are all enjoying their summer a lot. That’s great! Silvio hopes to march his first full show later this week, but definitely this coming weekend in San Antonio. San Antonio will be the first show I get to see ALL seven Jubal members in action. Can’t wait to see Glassmen too.


If I can get everyone together in uniform in one of the breaks I will try and take a group picture of the Jubal-team. Not sure if we can realize that though, but it would be a neat shot!


We’re on our way to Texas. Yeah… more heat!!


Enjoy,
HK

TOUR OF CHAMPIONS IN ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS

For the second year in a row DCI organizes “Tour of Champions” shows around the country. Today was the first edition of this season in Rockford (Illinois), Phantom Regiment’s home-show.

Nothing unusual about today’s time in Devils Food (our food truck). I made some stir-fry curry for the vegetarians, and decorated a few cakes. This year’s DADA show is an easy theme to put in a cake decoration (well,… not the show logo they created!) The other cakes were white cake with pineapple and chocolate cake with marshmallows and almonds.
Always lettuce/salad on the dinner tables, ánd fruit! This corps gets fed really well.

The Tour of Champions lineup for this year is: show sponsor Phantom Regiment, Santa Clara Vanguard, Cavaliers, Bluecoats, Boston Crusaders, Carolina Crown, the Cadets and Blue Devils of course.

De volgorde van optreden rouleert dit seizoen. Vandaag waren Blue Devils als EERSTE aan de beurt. Dat is natuurlijk uitzonderlijk. Ze spelen nooit om 19:00 uur ’s avonds nog met de volle zon op het veld.

My friend Dan Potter once again is the announcer for the TOC series. Always good to see him back again after a year! This season Dan is assisted by former BD color guard Holly Medellin. The Rockford stadium was sold out tonight, as it is every year. They could easily fill a much larger stadium, but this show has been held at these facilities for years and years, so they’re sticking to their tradition.


Lots of familiar faces at tonight’s show. Ed Demspey (whom I marched with back in 1987), Christina Mavroudis, Scott Litzenberg (tonight’s show coordinator) and a bunch of staff members of various corps that used to march with Blue Devils.

The Blue Devils show was pretty good considering the field condition (very high grass!). The average crowd member has a hard time getting into this year’s show production. It’s a little over the top to them.

Despite the fact the corps went on first, Blue Devils topped tonight’s TOC and made the gap between them and second place (Crown) even bigger.
Finally met up with Demy, who is having a blast with Boston Crusaders this tour. We talked a little after the show. He showed me his TOC pass. Papendrecht has apparently been moved to Florida now.

The cake was a hit at snack and lots of members wanted to take a picture of it before it was touched. As usual BD are the last ones to pull out of the parking lot after pretty much every show. Today was no exception. After we hit the road to our next stop (tomorrow we will be in Oletha, Kansas) our bus always stops at one of the first truck stops outside the town we just came from. Most of us need a potty-stop and freshen up a little before we really put some miles on the odometer.
Kansas, here we come!

Enjoy,
HK

DCI MINNEAPOLIS

Good to talk to my parents for a while on Skype this morning. What a great invention!
As I wrote yesterday…. Today was the big event for the top-corps. The first time they’d meet in competition. Luckily the weather held off today. It was a perfect day,… perhaps a little too hot. I bet a lot of people in the crowd got sun burnt as well today.

Last night I met up with some of the DCI staff at the stadium. Good to see them again. They all asked about Jubal and wanted to know how we were doing this season, and most of all WHEN we were planning on coming back. I figured I’d leave that question unanswered. We’ll see… 2014/2015.

Our Jubal buddies Demy, Krijn, Melanie, Michelle, Ilja, Anton, Silvio and former snare Gilles were in this show as well, but due to my commitment to the BD I was only able to get to the stadium late. Too late to see the Colts, Glassmen and Blue Stars perform. Michelle & Ilja had stopped by our food truck looking for me. I had just gone to the stadium. They left me a cute note. Shortly after that I did get to see them and talk to them though.

I did see Blue Knights perform with Melanie and Boston Crusaders with Demy! Will have to try and catch the other corps perform in San Antonio next week.
Melanie was very hard to pick out in the first half of the show. The guard is wearing feathers and their faces are creatively decorated as well. Once they took the feathers off and switched to a red outfit it was easy to find her in the show. She’s doing a fine job!

Boston Crusaders opened in all four corners of the field. Demy was very easy to spot. He’s probably the tallest guy in the entire hornline. Boston has a beautiful music book. Obviously being on the frontsideline with my camera I haven’t got a clue what they do in drill. I will try and see these shows from up top at one of the contests too some day.

Blue Devils were on fire tonight. They placed first with a lead of 0.5 point. Enough room to improve the show even further.
We’re on our way to Rockford, Illinois now. A trip of about 350 miles. Life is great with WIFI on the bus!

Enjoy,
HK

SACK LUNCH & SYSTEM BLUE CLINIC

Today the corps would rehearse in the stadium (where the show will be tomorrow), so we prepared breakfast and the members could make a “sack lunch”,… a lunch package in a paper bag with all sort of goodies beside their ham/cheese or PB&J sandwiches (I will do a separate post on PB&J later).

After the corps had left for the stadium we would pack & clean and leave too. Dinner would be served at the stadium. These days Blue Devils organized a System Blue clinic for marching band kids. An intense training programme for these youngsters, who eventually got to play with the hornline and drumline.
The stadium is really spectacular. A very good venue for a drumcorps show!

I walked through the area around the stadium a bit and checked out some of the local stores. That came in handy because I needed a new (extra) memory card.
I got to see quite a bit of the afternoon rehearsal as well. Exciting stuff going on on the field! Have to get into and see their show a bit more though to fully get what is going on.

When it was almost time for dinner we were in for a surprise. Clouds had started to fill the sky shortly before dinner and we knew they had predicted early evening rain, but right when literally EVERYTHING was out on the table waiting for the members to come from the stadium, things started being blown from the table. It took less than 5 minutes to move everything inside the loading area of the stadium, set up the tables again and serve our Taco Salad dinner. Great teamwork!! Only seconds after we were inside a pretty intense rainstorm hit the area.

This made me think of 2010 when the show was cancelled halfway down the program because of a Tornado-warning. Back then sirens went off throughout Minneapolis. Phantom had just entered the field and was taken off. All the spectators had to gather in the restrooms, and all the members of the participating corps were brought together in the same area we were now having dinner in. A cool gathering, but pretty scary weather outside. Fortunately today’s storm only lasted a good hour.

The evening block today didn’t even have much of a delay, opening with the System Blue clinic activities. The hornline (with addition of extra trumpets, trombones, sousaphones, and even flutes, clarinets and a baritone saxophone!) played John Meehan’s “Autumn”. The drumline played through a number of exercises.
Back at the housing site now. A little party going on in The Nest (our staffbus). These first few nights I am sleeping on a mattress in the school though.


Tomorrow is the big day… all World Class corps will get together in competition for the first time. BD haven’t been up against Crown, Cadets, Bluecoats, Madison Scouts or Cavaliers yet. Should be an exciting event!
Goodnight everyone!

Enjoy,
HK

JIM MEISTER'S GERMAN BAR - STILLWATER, MN

As if a jet leg would hold me from having a bit of fun!

Last night I watched BD rehearsal in the school stadium. Quite a few Blue Devils alumni were present as well, among which my friends Jeff DeMello and Todd Tanji.

They introduced me to some other former BD people which led into some interesting conversations. And my God,… this music activity (hobby) we’re all in once again proved to be such a small world.
Got to talk about people we both know, but who I haven’t seen in years, and they only saw them a few days ago.

Met Phil McArthur, a member of the Advisory Committee to the BD Board of Directors. Turns out he also knows my friend Retha Cilliers of the Field Band Foundation in South Africa.
Well,… to make a long story short,… They invited me to join them in going to the Jim Meister’s bar in Stillwater, a few miles outside Minneapolis. What a cool place!

This bar has a long BD history, dating back to mid-70s, when the corps used to stop here first on their DCI Tour and held a camp of a few days. Stillwater used to be one of the first shows on the tour outside California. Well,.. the story goes that all (or at least most of the staff) used to go here every night after rehearsal,… but ALSO a bunch of members. Apparently this was one of the few bars in the country that also served underage clients. I doubt very much that would happen nowadays.

Had some great conversations about Jubal, about the drumcorps activity in Europe, mutual issues in corps and organizations, where this activity is going, about work, friends, family,… you name it… we probably talked about it.
The waitress was very friendly, but was freaked out by me speaking to her in German. Her knowledge of the German language didn’t go much further than the word “Oktoberfest”.

Good food, nice beer and great company. What else could one wish for on a first real night in the States with a body that says it needs some sleep?
Well,.. . it didn’t get too much sleep after all, because I was up at 6:30, ready for breakfast.

Enjoy,
HK

YESTERDAY WAS A LOOOOOOOONG DAY!

My flight, correction… FLIGHTS to the States yesterday took a bit longer than I had hoped, but hey… I never have any trouble sleeping on planes, so it wasn’t all that bad after all.

My folks were so kind to drive me to Brussels airport. Yes,… I left from Belgium. Saved quite a bit of money on the flight(s) compared to leaving from Amsterdam. Looked around on the internet for decently priced flights and ended up with Air Canada as my best bet.

The fact that this flight would go through Toronto didn’t bother me, not even the fact that I had a 5-hour layover there. All airports in the USA and Canada have free Wifi, so I never got bored.

Checking in at Brussels airport didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped. The guy checking my passport needed to see my ticket…. My return ticket to be precise! And guess what. Obviously I had NOT printed that one. Apparently they need to see if everyone leaving for the States will also return at some point. They couldn’t find my return flight in their computer either.

When I eventually got to the check-in counter I was surprised to hear my flight was going to go through Montreal first! Jeeezzzz,… I never checked my flight schedule too well I guess. The same plane would fly on to Toronto, so it was only to clear customs in Montreal and then move on.

The flights were fine. Even though I slept good, I didn’t miss the drinks or the meals/snacks! Didn’t see all that much of the movies though!
In Toronto I already had to clear customs and Homeland Security for the USA, so that made it a lot easier. Spent my time at the Toronto airport effectively. Grabbed a bite, and had a few beers (Molson!) at the airport bar.

Got to Minneapolis in a much smaller plane. Coincidentally it had the word JAZZ on the side, almost exactly in the same font as Blue Devils use for that word on their corps jackets.

Trinet picked me up from the airport and drove me to BD’s rehearsal site, where they were just having snack. A very warm welcome was awaiting me. So many members came by and said they were happy I was back on tour with them this summer. Always nice to hear.

I sleep on a mattress in the school these first few days, since we’re not leaving for the next city until Saturday night.
This morning they let me sleep in a little bit. Guess what… with the jet leg that doesn’t help much. After 3 hours of sleep I was up and running. Took a half an hour power nap this morning.

This morning the weekly food-order was delivered too, so we had a shitload of boxes and stuff to find a storage space for. Today the corps had split laundry day and rehearsal at the school stadium (Impressive school complex!!). I will go and watch some of rehearsal tonight. Fixing dinner now!

Not too sleepy at the moment, so I think I will be fine.

Enjoy,
HK

Off to the States for 5 weeks of drumcorps !

I know… I haven’t posted here for almost TWO years. Ashamed about this? Nope!
Normally I use this blog only for my experiences on tour (with the Blue Devils) in the States every summer, and since we took our own corps Jubal on a 3-week tour in the USA last summer I obviously had some other things to do rather than update my own blog.

In addition to that Facebook has taken quite a bit of the blog-activity away too. So much easier to post on Facebook! OK,… the messages are usually brief, but to the point. Pictures can be added easily too.

In the statistics of this weblog however I read that a few day prior to my departure the amount of page-visits had gone up dramatically, and yesterday, on the day of my actual departure this number again went way up! Apparently quite a few of you do want to read what all goes on on tour with BD.

So I decided to pick up where I left off in August here on this blog and will try and post a note every day (time permitting of course!)

Enjoy,

HK