Day 38

Date: June 21, 2011

Time: 11:33pm (GMT)

Playing on iTunes: "I've Got You Under My Skin (feat. Katharine McPhee)" by Chris Botti

Location: Albecurque, NM

Recent trip: 330 miles

We rolled into the Mountain View Middle School at 3:30 in the morning. We got about 4 hours of floor time and then we’re off to another quick show day. This week is a little weird as far as rehearsing goes. We have shows a lot of the days and the other days we have either laundry days or a free day. To put it in perspective, we have about 17 hours of rehearsal for 5 days. An average 5 days we’ll get about 30 hours of rehearsal. So it’s definitely going to be a very productive but short 5 days before we get to Clovis, CA.

This is what we woke up to this morning (left). The absolutely beautiful mountains in New Mexico. Aside from the mountains, check out the absolutely dry ground that was surrounding the school and pretty much the entire visible area within 10s of miles. Although I absolutely love the New Mexico scenery, it’s a little dry when it comes to the air. Scratch that...it’s EXTREMELY dry when it comes to the air.

Walking to the stadium from the truck

Due to the insufficiency of the fields that we were at the middle school, we decided to relocate to the field we were going to perform on that night. This field was the University of New Mexico Football field. It was our first grass field. Although I’m not marching on the field, from what the staff and members are saying, grass is much different since it is thicker than turf. The listening situations are altered slightly as well. So as you can imagine, we had to get used to the surroundings and it was great that we were able to use the field we were going to perform on that night. VERY essential.

On the way over to the football stadium there was a beautiful view from the bus that I just had to take a picture of (above). And another side note, I’m not exactly sure what the gas prices are back home in MA, but when I left they were hovering around $4. We drove by a gas station here that was $3.39!! So cheap! Hopefully it will keep going down so the corps doesn’t have to pay so much money for gas since we have 11 vehicles to truck around all summer.

Our show tonight went pretty well. The horn line was not as loud, from my perspective in the pit, than usual. Maybe that was because of the stadium or what not. not exactly sure but the show just felt different for me. It wasn’t 100 degrees out so I wasn’t drenched in sweat and I personally felt not as accomplished at the end of the show. I know it sounds weird, but since our first two shows I was drenched in sweat, I feel that I did not reach my full performance ability since there was no sweat. I just have to realize that it was not hot out at all. But on a good note here are the scores from tonight’s performers:

New Mexico

1) Cadets - 72.6

2) Blue Devils - 72.5

3) Phantom Regiment - 69.1

4) Santa Clara Vanguard - 68.4

5) Blue Knights - 64.0

6) Revolution - 63.6

So as you can see we got the same score as we did the second G8 show. Not exactly what we’re looking for. We’re looking for improvement everyday. Maybe certain individuals improved over the 24-48 hours, but as a corps we either didn’t perform any better or did not improve musically and visually. That’s just something we will have to work out and get better. Getting better every day. 

Tour is really kicking in and it’s definite that people, as well as myself, are getting exhausted and are having trouble staying focused at all time. The best thing Hop has told us to do is just catch ourselves and focus back in. This has worked for me lately and my endurance for attention has increased. Being inspired everyday by everyone around me. 

New Mexico at night

We’ve got a long ride ahead of us. Here we come Mesa, AZ!!

Thought of the Day: “Always stay focused. Just tell yourself to keep going.”