Day 89

Date: August 12, 2011

Time: 1:15am (EST)

Playing on iTunes: "Hey You" by 311

Location: Indianapolis, IN Day 2

Day two of finals week, very successful. To start of we got woken up by the tubas which was very fun and loud at the same time. Great way to start the day. I usually get some coffee, but a world class drum corps tuba section is just as great!

So today is DCI World Championships Quarterfinals. This is the first of three nights where all the corps from around the country (around 40) will perform and then find out if they made it to the next round - semifinals - and then to the finals round - finals.

Ian Grom's pogo sticking skills

All of the staff has finally come in! Ian, Jerry, and Mike. They’re all back for the rest of finals week. Great to have lots of familiar faces back in and working with us.

There wasn’t a lot going on today other then preparing for our performance tonight. From my perspective, it doesn’t seem like Quarterfinals. Everyone around says that this week is insane and everyone is in a scramble to get ready and they’re all nervous. I am not worried about this performance coming up tonight. It makes me feel like we’re as prepared as possible. If you’re sitting there before a showed anxious and worried, that means you aren’t prepared enough. If you go in comfortable, confident (possibly with a little nerves), and ready to perform then you’ll tear down the house.

Ensemble today was the best ensemble we have had yet. We’ve been in a battle for the field because of the football team is practicing before school gets back in session. And the football clock runs a little differently than we do. When we’re ready to use the field at 3:30, they’re not ready to give it up until 3:40. But this was fine, because all the staff said we were ready and we got everything done very efficiently and great performances on the first repetition. Lots of amazing energy from the corps before quarterfinals.

Finals this year, as similar to years past, is in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. You may be familiar with it because it’s the Indianapolis Colts (football) stadium. It is a dome and so we needed to make sure that we were all prepared to hear the different sounds in the dome. 

The pit road on the same bus into the stadium with the guard because we were rehearsing near the stadium. The brass and battery road different buses because they rehearsed in a park nearby. The pit had a great warm up and was ready to go in there and tear the house down.

As far as the performance, we had our best performance yet, from the pit. It felt great to perform in Lucas Oil Stadium. I had always seen shows from past DCI years such as the 2000s and always dreamed of playing there for DCI Championships. 


DCI World Championship Prelims
1) The Cadets - 97.35
2)Blue Devils - 96.85
3) The Cavaliers - 96.45
4) Carolina Crown - 94.8
5) Phantom Regiment - 94.15
6) Santa Clara Vanguard - 91.85
7) Bluecoats - 91.8
8) Boston Crusaders - 90.2
9) Blue Knights - 88.7
10) Madison Scouts - 88.5
11) Blue Stars - 86.9
12) Spirit of Atlanta - 85.5


The crowd absolutely love the show and we knew that we had torn down the house, even as the second to last performers of the night. Still two more nights to go. Let's see what we can do to this place! Goodnight everyone!

My sleeping quarters during finals week! =)

Thought of the Day: "Passion is what drives your life. Do everything you do with a sense of passion. If you don't, then why do it?"