Kilties on Parade
July 4-6, 2008
Four parades, a field show, a concert, and two rehearsals. WHEW! That’s one busy weekend! The Kilties helped local Wisconsinites celebrate the anniversary or our great nation’s independence and we were rewarded with wonderful appreciative ovations wherever we appeared.
Our busy 4th of July weekend began at 7AM Friday the 4th at the Wal-Mart parking lot where we loaded our equipment into the luggage bays of 2 chartered coaches (and a third “contra only” custom school bus) and headed off to our first parade in Union Grove, WI. We were on a tight schedule, since the Union Grove parade and the Racine parade both start at 9AM. Since we were the first marching unit in Union Grove and unit 138 (out of 140) in Racine we were able to pull off the improbable appearance in two simultaneously scheduled parades. The Union Grove appearance was not exactly the highlight of the weekend, but it was a great warm-up for the big Racine parade which was a highlight for sure!
Speaking of highlights, the area weather was straight out of the Garden of Eden. Temperatures in the low 70s, sunny, low humidity, and light breezes. It may have been the best weather in the history of the 4th of July! For the first time ever, the weather was so good that it got its’ own entire paragraph in JCs Review. That’s what I call good weather!
Our efforts in Union Grove were rewarded with crisp juicy apples, granola bars and bottled water on the bus ride to the corner of Goold and Main Streets in Racine, the official start of the big 4th Fest parade. Our great home town parade was given some well deserved notoriety in the national media this year. The USA Today placed our parade in the “Top 10 4th of July Parades in the USA” in a recent article, something local Racinians have known for a long time. Estimated crowds approaching 100,000 people are the norm, making this parade the largest audience of the year for the Kilties. And the citizens of Racine do love their Kilties! We disembarked from the buses right onto the parade route and turned the corner onto Main Street playing “Scotland the Brave” to a cheering throng. Playing for that crowd never gets old!
The parade was highlighted for me by a stop in front of legendary Kiltie music arranger and instructor Emil Pavlik’s house. Emil was musical director for the Kilties from 1949 to the mid-60s and he just turned 90. There was a wonderful article in the Racine Journal Times about Emil’s storied musical career last week in honor of his milestone birthday, and we took the opportunity to stop and play Auld Lang Syne for him and his extended family. 4th of July drum major Trace Mullinex even got his picture taken on the porch with Emil. We also made our annual stop at the Meredith funeral home and played Slow Syne in memory of all former Kilties that have left us.
Then it was off to Somers, WI for our third and final appearance of the day. Shoreland Lutheran High School was the staging are for the parade, and we gathered at the Shoreland stadium where the corps provided sub sandwiches, chips and fruit for lunch. Our 2PM march down Main Street Somers was greeted by a nice crowd that was very appreciative of our first ever appearance in their parade. Our busy 4th ended back where it began at the Wal-Mart parking lot at 3:30. We had the rest of the day to relax and celebrate the 4th with family and friends.
Saturday morning found the Kilties back at our home base of Gilmore Middle School for 9AM breakfast followed by a rehearsal session from 10AM-2:30PM. Once again the weather was superb! Since Drum Major Guy Greg was standing up in a wedding in Madison that afternoon, we did a run-through of the show with him directing to start the rehearsal so that he could get up to Madison and do his groomsman duties before meeting up with us again in Sun Prairie for our evening performance. In Guy’s absence, Kiltie lead soprano Bob Lindsey took over the podium chores and did a phenomenal job! Thanks Bobby! You rock!
After rehearsal, much of the corps headed over to Wal-Mart to catch the bus to Sun Prairie, WI for our exhibition at the big MACBDA circuit show sponsored by the “Sound of Sun Prairie” marching band. My lovely wife Lisa and I took the opportunity to squeeze a quick visit to my sister Justine and her husband Pat’s house in Sun Prairie for a short cookout. We were surprised to see my brother Jimmy and his wife Kam there with their 7 children. It meant that there would be no less than 14 or my family members at the show cheering for the Mighty Kilties! Not bad for an away gig :-)
The show was at the Sun Prairie High School stadium, the site of many of the old Capitol Sound and Madison Scout DCM shows. It’s a great stadium for sound, set in a bowl, and the show was well attended with an estimated crowd of well over 1000 people. We were the last to perform, under the lights in exhibition. We got to watch much of the Sound of Sun Prairie show and I must say I was impressed. They are large and they are very good, marching a “drum corps style” show that really brought the house down. As we took the field, I noticed a large contingent of Racine Lighthouse Brigade members in the crowd cheering for the home team. We put on our best show of the young season and we were once again rewarded for our efforts with loud and boisterous ovations throughout. I’m really getting to like performing in exhibition at MACBDA shows. The two shows we’ve been in this summer both sported large enthusiastic crowds that really gave it up for all of the performers throughout the evening. Good stuff!
After the show Lisa and I made a quick get away back to Racine, while the bus and most members headed to East Troy for our 2 Sunday appearances. In true drum corps style, the bus riding contingent got to sleep on the gym floor at East Troy High School. Reports on the amount and quality of sleep obtained vary from member to member, but folks looked no worse for the wear when I arrived for 9:30AM rehearsal an hour late for Kiltie breakfast, but right on time for rehearsal. We spent the rest of the morning in sectionals, guard rehearsing equipment work, brass and percussion working music. It was time well spent and left us with plenty of energy for our afternoon appearances.
As always, lunch was provided by the corps in the high school cafeteria. Thanks again to Joany and the cook staff for another job well done! We were one of the last units in the 1PM parade so we got to see lots of parade entries pass by the high school before the parade. At one point a cool Scottish bag pipe unit came by, so of course everyone yelled the obligatory “Play Something”. To our delight, they stopped in front of us, arc-ed up and played “Scotland the Brave”. Very cool! We returned the favor with loud applause and then we arc-ed up and played our version of “Scotland the Brave” for them. We were louder :-)
The East Troy parade was pretty darn long, but at least it was well attended. We played a lot and I’m sure that like me, the rest of the corps was happy to see the end. The parade seemed to suck a little more out of me than I thought it should, but I guess it had been a long weekend. We relaxed and hydrated for 15 minutes and then we set up for a concert at the East Troy fairground grandstands. East Troy had a great festival going on and there were live bands playing, dance tents rocking, beer and food tents serving and lots of people around enjoying it all. Every 5 minutes the PA system would announce our 3:30 performance at the grandstand and there was a good crowd on hand when we performed. We played “Scotland the Brave, “Water is Wide”, all five movements of the field show, and we finished our busy weekend with “Slow Syne”. The crowd gave it up for us with a great standing O to cap off the performance.
We circled the wagons around corps director Scott Stewart and he congratulated us on a good performance. Again, what Scott told us was for the members, so I won’t go into it here. Suffice it to say that so far our journey to excellence has been an enjoyable one. It is indeed good to be us!
Til Next Time,
J.C.
