DCA Championships
August 29 - September 1, 2001
The Kilties didn’t win the 2008 DCA Championship. We didn’t even make finals, but you already knew that, and we’re OK with that. What was accomplished this season has very little to do with judges and numbers and almost everything to do with growth and transformation, both as individuals and as an organization. That’s a big reason why we had such a great experience in Rochester… because our trip truly was the cap to a season of growth and transformation.
For the third year in a row, the Kilties stayed at one of the epicenters of the DCA Championships, the Clarion Riverside hotel in downtown Rochester. The Clarion is the site of all the big I&E activities, and it is attached to the convention center, site of the Mini Corps championships. The wonderful staff at the Clarion continued their tradition of bending over backwards for all of their drum corps guests, providing perfect touches such as fast buffet meals in the on-site restaurant, special equipment truck and support vehicle parking, and even equipment polishing rags on each floor so that we could make our equipment nice and shiny without ruining the towels. They were also unbelievably understanding about how noisy being at the center of a drum corps championship can be. They really did contribute to making our championship experience top notch.
Most Kilties arrived with the bus / van caravan on Friday morning at about 6:30 AM. The weary travelers had enough time to get settled and relax a little before heading over to our rehearsal site at Cobb Hill Park. Like our hotel, this is the third year in a row that we have rehearsed at Cobb Hill. It’s a charming, scenic Rochester park that affords us everything we need in a practice facility. We really can’t thank Allan Buell and his DCA Championship staff enough for providing us with such great accommodations and practice facilities! It is greatly appreciated!
Food coordinator Joan Krause provided another one of her wonderful brunches and at 12:30 we hit the field for a very productive afternoon of rehearsal. We started by running the entire show with brass and guard singing and percussion playing. It gave us a good reference point for the weekend and kind of shook the cob webs out of us. As the cool cloudy afternoon progressed, we touched every show segment, and our final run-through was fabulous. We left Cobb Hill feeling good about all things Kiltie.
As always, Friday evening was one of the coolest and most fun nights of the season. For my money, Rochester provides us with the best I&E (Individual and Ensemble contest) and Mini Corps venue ever, bar none. Two blocks of Main Street Rochester are blocked off between the Clarion and the Convention Center and drum corps people of all shapes, sizes, ages, and eras descend upon the venues for a huge celebration of our sport. The Clarion convention and banquet rooms play host to brass individual and ensemble competitions, Main Street hosts the percussion contests, and the Convention Center hosts guard and Mini Corps competitions. Street vendors provide food and drink (the Philly steak sandwiches were phenomenal), and more war stories and exaggerations of past exploits are told that night than any other night of the year. DCA I&E coordinator Dick Pronti had things running like a well oiled machine once again. I really don’t know how he does it, but everything came off flawlessly.
I spent most of the I&E running between venues to catch as many of the Kiltie performances as I could, but alas, it was not possible to see them all. I actually missed the Kiltie Bass Drums, a.k.a. Romance Explosion 2 defending their percussion quintet title. They once again performed before a screaming throng of RX2 groupies. One young lady in the audience was heard saying “they’re so good they make me want to rip my clothes off”… really… I’m not making this up. Congratulations Katie Nielsen, Anders Hagen, Eric Olson Greg Mauldin and Doug Davidson on your title defense!
I got to see Kiltie charter member Joe Fazzari (who is retiring from the Kilties for good after this season for the 4th year in a row), win the Contra division, edging out his son Nick who placed 4th. I had the pleasure of sitting with Nick’s mom and grandpa for both performances, and the looks of pride on their faces were priceless! Congratulations Joe and Nick. I also managed to see Kiltie screech soprano soloist Dave Figgie duke it out with 19 other sopranos, many of whom are drum corps legends, and come out of it with a very respectable 9th place finish.
I ran over to see Kiltie guard member Matt Taylor perform his flag solo on the big stage at the convention center and elicit lots of spontaneous applause throughout the performance. Matt’s 5th place finish was fantastic. Then I ran back over to the Clarion for the two Kiltie brass ensemble entries. First up was the Kiltie Mellophone Choir consisting of Guy Gregg, Beth Landbo, Cathy Delano, John Deyherle and twins Oran and Josh Lindsey. They dressed up in blue choir robes and played a beautiful version of Amazing Grace that brought the packed house down. Then I stuck around for the Kiltie Baritone quintet of Mike Taylor, John Martinoff, Dan Scerpella, Dave Figgie (yup, the same Dave Figgie as the one in the soprano competition) and Matt Billock, who set a new record for the most double and triple tongued notes ever played in a 2 minute time period. These guys really brought the house down, dressed in matching Kilts, sandals, t-shirts and dew rags! It was a case of too much sex appeal at one time and the place spontaneously broke into an orgy of applause! The baritones won the competition within the competition, besting the mellophones by a single point for 7th place in the stacked division.
Unfortunately, I missed our youngest Kiltie baritone, Justin Clintsman, perform. Justin played soprano with the corps last year at age 13, but switched to baritone this year and did an amazing job placing 5th in the baritone competition. Phenomenal! I also missed two Kiltie snares show off their diverse talents and compete in the Mallets division. Two time defending Mallet champion Chris Tomaloff was edged out this year and placed 3rd. Tim Hummel did the Kilties proud by placing 6th. Outstanding! I also missed our first ever entry in the guard duet competition. Korrinne Powelski and Michael Marcantano wowed the convention center audience with a performance that was good enough for 4th place.
Finally, I missed the soprano solo of Nick Hummel (listed as Nick Caljean in the official I&E results). Nick is a first year Kiltie soprano and the son of Tim (who competed on mallets). Nick beat some big names in his first ever I&E competition and should be very proud!
Mini Corps was awesome. There was amazing diversity of approach in each mini corps. The winner, Star United, featured two former Kilties, Frank “El Guapo” Cardenas on trumpet and Jeff Banyots on tuba. They were flawless! The second place corps, Mass Brass blew me away! They were spectacular! Third place went to Golden Eagles who featured another former Kiltie Lindsey Benoit on contra, and the screaming sop of legendary Frank Ponzo. I loved these guys. It was also cool to see Kiltie legend Kenny Norman performing with Capital Brass who played one of my favorite arrangements of the evening, Pachuco. I had an absolute blast socializing with a long list of drum corps friends.
Saturday found us back at Cobb Hill Park for final preparations before our prelim performance. It was a “Chamber of Commerce” type day; mid 70s, sunny, no humidity and a light breeze. We rehearsed at a high level and felt like we were ready to knock-em dead. At noonish, Scott assembled the troops and told us go out and perform just like we rehearsed. Our performance was the only thing that we could control, so it should be our only focus, not the judges, the crowd, or any other distractions. We were ready!
We all met at the equipment truck behind Paeteck Park at 4:30 to warm up for our 6:06 performance. Warm ups went well and I was confident heading over to the stadium. Our performance was just OK. We didn’t lay a big egg like last year, but there were a lot of little warts on the performance both musically and visually that kind of spoiled things enough to make me feel like our season had climaxed performance level-wise a day early. The good news is that the crowd ate it up. They applauded lustily in all the right places and gave us a really nice standing O which started well before the last note was just an echo. It wasn’t just one of those polite ovations. I think we really connected with the audience.
We gathered around Scott, and our hearts all sank a little when he summed up our performance pretty much like I summed it up above. Nonetheless, when our score was announced we were a little surprised at how low it was. Scott gathered the troops around him in the parking lot and put everything into perspective for us. We had started this journey way back in December of 07 and he asked us to look back on the season as a series of steps in a journey. Each step in our journey had been successful until we kind of stubbed our toe on the last step. That last little toe stub should not be what defines our season. It should be the incredible progress we had each made as individuals living the corps values of character, honor, tradition and excellence. It should be the transformation of the corps work ethic, mode of operation, and infrastructure which will be instrumental in the long haul, and the Kilties are in this for the long haul. And finally it should be about the journey itself and the friendships and relationships that we have built and strengthened.
But sometimes it takes a while for life lessons to sink in, and I was in a pretty foul mood for a good portion of the evening. I couldn’t reconcile some of the judge’s decisions such as how one GE Visual judge could put us in 10th while the other could put us in 21st and I was a little bitter about it. I guess that’s part of the ugly side of human nature, and last I looked, I’m still human. I even snapped at my friend Cozy Baker in the lobby of the Clarion hotel that evening. Sorry Cozy, I won’t let it happen again. I retired to my room and went to bed sort of seething. Looking back on it, I am a little embarrassed.
Then some things happened that helped me to put the day’s events in perspective and allow some life lessons to sink in. My friend Dave Figgie called my room and told me to get down to the parking lot, it was an emergency. The Kiltie Khoir was in need of my services, and the Golden Eagles would supply free beer if I came down and partied with them. So I went down and had about the best time ever belting out all the classics. The Kiltie Khoir was in rare form, and I was filled with great joy as I immersed myself in the moment and got to thinking that this is really what drum corps is about, not scores or placements. I met a bunch of new friends from Golden Eagles, and was as proud as I’ve ever been to be a Kiltie, especially since it was Dave and the rest of the khoir that had pulled me out of my little snit. At 3AM I went to bed grinning from ear to ear, a much happier man.
On Sunday morning we had a full corps meeting and Scott reinforced for us why our season was indeed a huge success and why it will be remembered by him as one of his favorite seasons ever. He said that he’ll fondly remember the growth, the friendships and our transformation as a corps. I felt a little more embarrassment for my attitude of the previous evening and resolved to make the most of my Sunday in Rochester. Hairbear and I went to Paeteck Park at 4PM so that we could hang at the Kiltie souvie booth before the show, and generally mingle with old friends. It did my heart good to talk to so many fans at the souvie booth that saw and loved our show on Saturday. We were elated to see Kiltie souvies fly off the shelf. We ended up selling more souvies than any year since the DCA championships of 1998, a pretty good sign that somebody liked us. :-)
I enjoyed all 14 performances at finals, and was particularly happy to see both Chops and MN Brass at the top of their games! Congratulations Chops on a fine season, and super extra special congratulations to MN Brass on their incredible and unprecedented 2nd place finish! During the grand finale, when I realized that MN Brass had come in second, it gave me chills. What a fantastic accomplishment! And I would be remiss if I didn’t congratulate Alliance and Bucs on their well deserved championships.
After finals I stopped by at the big green Govie bus and compared war stories with Smoothy and others until our bus headed back to the Clarion for the post show party. We got the Kiltie Khoir back together for an encore performance before an even larger crowd of fellow drum corps folks, and generally reveled in the moment. It was both therapeutic and fulfilling to be with my Kiltie family as we met countless members of other corps staying at the Clarion and enjoyed the heck out of the evening. We didn’t get much sleep, but we’ll all sleep when we’re old. :-)
No, the Kilties didn’t win the 2008 DCA Championship. We didn’t even make finals. What we did was far more important than that. We brought 39 new marching members into the Kiltie family and provided a conduit for learning and success based on living out our corps principles. As I gaze into my crystal ball I see a future grounded in those corps principles of character, honor, tradition and excellence that have always guided us. I see us continuing to strive to be a model organization for the whole activity. And I see us continuing to improve all aspects of the Kilties, most important of which is the membership experience, but this year’s experience will be hard to improve upon!
WWBD!
JC
P.S. Don’t forget to come to “Great Lakes Brewfest”, the coolest festival since sliced bread! Check it out at www.greatlakesbrewfest.com. You’ll be glad you did!
