J.C.'s Review
Memorial Day Weekend Report – May 29-31, 2010
For as long as I have been involved in the activity, Memorial Day weekend has marked the start of the summer drum corps season. In the 60s and 70s, Memorial Day meant performing in the first big show of the season at Lakefront Stadium in Kenosha. Now-a-days, Memorial Day is the weekend that we shoot for finishing our drill, and it still marks our first uniformed performance of the season in the Racine Memorial Day parade.
I’m happy to report that we did indeed finish learning drill for our production of “A Night at the Opera”, and while the Memorial Day parade resulted in a lot of wet wool, the crowd along the parade route was still large and appreciative of our efforts.
We gathered at Gilmore Middle School on Saturday and were greeted by glorious weather, sunny with temperatures in the low to mid 70s. Our stretch session culminated in one of the best “Shaky Shake” wrist warm ups of the season led by the 2010 Kiltie Snare line. The visual precision of the snare line efforts was superior to anything we’ve seen this season. The only thing that may have kept them from getting a perfect score was the fact that the difficult and innovative “accelerando” that they attempted to finish the exercise was not quite perfect. But the snare line unofficially gets an A+ from me for their efforts!
Following stretch, the percussion section headed over to the West side of Gilmore for warm-ups, the guard hit the field for equipment work and choreography, and the brass line headed to the far East of the rehearsal grounds for warm-ups fronted by Mike Madonia. This warm-up session was a little more exciting than usual since the brass staff came bearing gifts. Everyone in the brass line was given a way-cool “Burp”. A Burp is basically a plastic mouthpiece holder that can be easily mounted on the lead pipe of a brass instrument. It allows the user to buzz just the mouthpiece with the horn in playing position. For me, the best thing about them is that fact that you can finger the valves while buzzing the mouthpiece. It allows the user to work on centering each pitch without the benefit of the “pitch slotting” that the instrument provides. It reinforces the fact that the musician is really playing the mouthpiece, and that the instrument is really just amplifying the buzz. If you can make the buzz sound good, the rest will take care of itself.
We spent the rest of the morning with the full corps reviewing drill and equipment work for “Ride of the Valkyries”, “William Tell Overture” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”. What we refer to as “Act I” of the show is a concatenation of Valkyries and William Tell and has 3 standard drill segments that were each performed 5 times:
- Once with battery playing and brass singing.
- Once with 1st sops, mellos and baris playing.
- Once with 2nd sops, mellos and baris playing.
- Once with 3rd sops, baris and contras playing
- Once all in.
“Act II” of the show is “Bohemian Rhapsody” and it, too, is broken up into 3 standard drill segments that were worked in much the same way as Act I. It was a great review and served to dust off the cob webs that inevitably form between rehearsal weekends.
Following a delicious lunch of hot dogs, brats, and all the fixins, the drum line spent the rest of the day in sectionals while the brass and guard learned drill for “Act III”, “Bacchanale”. Drill designer Dave Koelz frenetically taught 39 pages of drill in just under 4 hours. And speaking of frenetic; wait until you see the drill for this section of the show. The last segment of Act III is performed at 160 beats per minute with average step sizes of 6 to 5 (rather than our traditional 8 steps to 5-yard stride). Suffice it to say that you cover a lot of ground doing 6 to 5 at 160 BPM! And to top it off, we get to rush the pit and peal some paint ala last year’s attack on the audience at the end of Movement III. This drill is definitely a step up in difficulty from anything we attempted last year, but it has the potential to be incredible! It’s going to test our stamina, but if we perform this section of the show to its potential, look out!
Sunday morning found us back at Ameche Field in Kenosha for more of the same. The weather was once again fabulous, sunny and hot with temperatures eventually reaching the high 80s, intensified by the heat capturing artificial turf field. Our stretch session was capped by very special edition of Shaky Shakes. All of our active military reserve members and military veterans led the exercise. The Kilties salute you all for your service to this great country! No critique of your Shaky Shake prowess is even appropriate. Suffice it to say, you all did a spectacular job, and much like the Marine Corps Drum and Bugle corps, judging you would be inappropriate.
After stretch, the battery took the field to work drill for Bacchanale, the guard went off to learn new equipment work and choreography, and the brass line went to the south pavilion and played with our new Burps. Then we worked the tricky (bordering on near impossible) full corps 16th note run section of William Tell Overture. If we can clean this section up, it will be jaw dropping, along the lines of the full soprano triple tongued passage in the 1972 St. Andrews Bridgemen show that blew me away all those years ago, only tougher.
At 12:30 we gathered the full corps on the artificial turf for parade rehearsal. Like the weekend prior, we lapped the field to the sounds of the street beat, Scotland the Brave and Auld Lang Syne, paying close attention to all the little details that really make a corps look professional and superior to your average marching band. We paraded our way all the way to lunch.
The rest of the day was spent in full corps, full ensemble rehearsal. We began by working on the closer “Bacchanale”, employing the same 5-step method that we used on Saturday for each segment of the piece. Then we set up the starting formation and blocked our way through Act I culminating in a complete all-in run of the piece. Then Act II was blocked and a complete run of the piece was performed. After blocking segments of Act III, we culminated a great camp with our first ever full corps all-in run of Bacchanale! YAY!!!! Now it’s clean, clean, clean for 2 full weekends before we debut the field show at the Madison Scouts “Drums on Parade” show June 26th. We’re setting ourselves up nicely for a very good premiere.
Sunday evening found much of the corps at the Fazarri residence for their first bon fire of the year. A few of us old farts missed the party, opting instead for a little extra sleep after a long hot day, but reports from the Fazarris’ are that a good time was had by all in attendance. Thanks again to the Fazarris for their hospitality!
On Monday, Memorial Day, we gathered at the Southwest corner of Washington Avenue and West Blvd. for the West Racine Memorial Day parade. It is always fun to witness the annual first donning of the uniform by new members. If you have ever actually put on one of our uniforms, you know why it is a bit of an ordeal the first time you go through it. But we think it’s the coolest uniform around, so it is all worth it. And speaking of cool uniforms, we all got our first look at the AWESOME 2010 guard costumes. The women will be wearing a clean and classy predominantly white pant suit accented with a wide grey waist band, and a silver waste-cape that gives the appearance of wearing a full length gown from the back and will afford some very cool visual effects when grabbed and unfurled. It flows beautifully behind during any forward movement, expanding in an almost parachute like fashion while shimmering and reflecting the light, creating a very cool effect. The suits are form fitting, and are very flattering! The men will be wearing light gray slacks, with fitted white tuxedo-style dress shirts with sleeves partially rolled up, and a sharp silver satin-finish vest. Very classy, and they go well with the women’s costumes. The new guard attire was a welcome visual exclamation point on our appearance in the parade!
At 9 AM the brass line and battery warmed up in the northwest lot, and the guard warmed up in the south lot. It was great to see all of the Kiltie alumni and friends on hand for warm-ups. I was pleased with the professionalism that the corps showed during warm-ups. After all the mundane warm up drills necessary to get the chops loose, we ran a segment from Bohemian Rhapsody starting at the first big hit of the tune. All the while, we had one eye on the approaching dark clouds in the Western sky. Like clock-work, 15 minutes before we stepped off on the parade route, it started raining.
Undaunted, we lined up for the parade and hit the streets playing Scotland the Brave to a wildly cheering throng of equally wet Racinians. We settled into the “once through the street beat… roll off… horns up” routine for the remainder of the parade, alternating between runs of Scotland and Syne. It’s always fun to march parades in Racine because the locals give us such a great reception. After all these years, the great reception never gets old and is greatly appreciated. I must also say that rain certainly didn’t scare anyone away from watching the parade. The whole parade route was packed!
We finished the parade marching into Graceland Cemetery and arc-ed up around the American Flag for the ceremonial Memorial Day playing of Slow Syne in memory of all the veterans who have served this great country through the years. I always get emotional on Memorial Day when we honor those who have served. It always serves to reconnect me with the military roots of our great activity and serves to remind me of the importance of passing down this rich heritage to the younger generation of Kilties. I was proud to honor our veterans on Memorial Day and I remain proud and honored to wear the plaid.
WWBD,
J.C.
