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