Cadets 2011 Summer Tour: Day 40

Date: June 23, 2011

Time: 8:51pm (PST)

Playing on iTunes: "Piano Man" by Billy Joel

Location: Huntington Beach, CA

Recent Trip: 390 miles

Today was our first real free day. In drum corps we are given a very few amount of free days to give us some breaks from our many hours of rehearsal. Sometimes they’re because the drum corps may be on a special trip to a place and the corps director may want the corps to check out that place. In that case, this is the first time the Cadets have been to California and so it’s great that we get a free day in Huntington Beach. It was the most relaxing day I’ve had here yet!

But it isn’t a free day without doing SOME playing. On our way out to the beach, we stopped at a high school for about 2 hours to get an hour and a half of floor time and then about half hour to and hour to get packed up to leave. We then proceeded to go to the Yamaha Headquarters (U.S. Division). Yamaha sponsors the Cadets with all the equipment we have. Being drums, vibraphones, trumpets, tubas, and essentially any musical instrument we use in the corps. It was a way for us to give back to a company that has done so much for us. This was a great feeling for me because I love giving back. Whether it is to people or organizations. It is a great feeling doing something for someone whether they have done something for you or not. All of the faculty came out during their lunch break and got a free concert by the Cadets!! It was great to see all of the Yamaha faculty so happy to see us play. Especially when we played our encore tune, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey! They all loved that one.

As you can see there are red (demons) and white (angels) drums. We received the
red (demon drums) from Yamaha today.

After performing at Yamaha, we traveled to the beach. This is the first time I’ve been to California so I made sure that I did everything I could while I was there. Put my feet in the pacific ocean, try different foods, do different things, etc. I feel I achieved everything I needed to today. Here is a few pictures that I took of the day today!