Day 90

Date: August 13, 2011

Time: 1:33am (EST)

Playing on iTunes: "This Love" by Maroon 5

Location: Indianapolis, IN Day 3

Here we are, semifinals day! As we get closer to finals day, more and more people are coming in, helping, visiting, and volunteering. It’s great to see everyone here. Today we had lots of visitors from our sponsors. This included Zildjian (cymbals), Remo (drum heads), and Yamaha; our largest sponsor (brass instruments/horns, and all percussion instruments). They all hung out by the pit while we rehearsed and I was so glad to see that all of our sponsors were able to see the pit rehearse. They got to see all of our fun warm ups as well as our show excerpts.

Ian Grom showing us his
pogo skills

The schedule today was a lot shorter than yesterday and will be a lot shorter tomorrow. We were by ourselves for a good amount of the day which allowed us to double and triple check everything in the show and make sure we were ready for the show tonight. Since we were by ourselves in one spot for a while and we didn’t have shade at all, I did get a little color. Definitely can feel the heat on my body but since I’ve gotten so much color this summer, it really doesn’t effect me as a burn. Probably not a good thing. I’ll make sure to wear sun screen tomorrow!

We started ensemble with everyone but the guard, so we call it just ‘music ensemble’. We worked the hot spots throughout the show that would mostly effect the Ensemble Music judge in the show tonight. Once the color guard joined it we continued our ensemble and performed so great. Everyone watching us (alumni, friends, family, townspeople) seemed to absolutely love the show.

So I found out that if the pit’s warm up is great and very focused, then our show will be great and focused. Last night’s warm up was great and focused but we seemed to be a little tentative. I think because we were at our first finals show and we were nervous about how the stadium would sound, but now that we know what the corps sounds like inside and we’re excited to perform we had a great, focused, relaxed warm up. We had a lot of fun in the warm up and it was focused. That’s what we needed to get ready for the show and it showed in our performance.

The Cadets went on last tonight since we got first place last night. This really helped us because the last place corps will get the most amount of people in the crowd. This definitely helps with energy for the corps. Throughout the show, the crowd cheered more and more than they did the night before. My favorite part is when the staff, seated right in the first five rows, cheers for us. They’re always the first ones up out of their seat and they know how hard we’ve worked so it means a lot when they’re right by our side cheering. The end of the show was absolutely insane. All six decks of people in front of us rose to their feet for the last 15 seconds of the show. They cheered louder than I had ever heard. It made me feel amazing and I honestly think it beat the feeling that I got at the Atlanta show which had 15,000 people at it. I cannot wait for tomorrow night!! We succeeded with our focus and energy tonight and tomorrow I know that it will only increase. I’m so excited to see what we can produce and cannot wait to perform!

DCI World Championship Semifinals

1) The Cadets - 97.8

2)Blue Devils - 97.3

3) The Cavaliers - 96.9

4) Carolina Crown - 95.6

5) Phantom Regiment - 93.95

6) Santa Clara Vanguard - 92.2

7) Bluecoats - 91.6

8) Boston Crusaders - 90.35

9) Blue Knights - 89.4

10) Madison Scouts - 88.35

11) Blue Stars - 87.00
12) Spirit of Atlanta - 86.55 

Thought of the Day: "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." - Maya Angelou