From the irreverent “revealing” of the colors, through the bump-and-grind concert number, all the way to “passing out” (falling down) at the end of an “exhausting” performance, the reinvention of the corps sent most fans into a screaming frenzy, as the Bayonne “bananas” turned everything precise inside out, ushering in its signature style.
Really, this was tough for me, for several years. When this drum corps from Jersey came to my hometown Birmingham, Alabama, in 1979, it took the crowd, lock, stock, and Civil War gun barrel pratfalls! I loathed it. I was personally embarrassed that “my” drum corps activity had been so demeaned, so insulted, by the insouciance, the lack of discipline (so I perceived it), of this renegade bunch.
In my first years as a public relations volunteer with the activity I tried to get media to focus on stringent exactitude; the media focused on “Thunder and Blazes,” on the “pimp” uniforms, and on the sheer entertainment that The Bridgemen brought to Legion Field. It would be but a few years before that “lack of discipline” I perceived became just the pressure cooker escape valve the activity craved; the pin prick that popped the pomposity of the past.
My perspective yielded. It was true: the evolution was indeed competitive, even among the activity’s most ardent fans. When I sit back and consider the first ten years of the 2000s and the evolution of drum and bugle corps, it remains clear that the best new ideas underscore the best of the activity’s core, no matter when any of us came into the fold.
That point, it seems, is pivotal to the evolution “argument:” what each of us considers bedrocks, or tenets, of the idiom, varies. Finding common ground is often as difficult as is change itself: the grass is always greener likely does not even begin to explain the conundrum.
I’ve grappled with it, however, and have drawn some conclusions of my own: conclusions that I will share over the coming days.
Really, this was tough for me, for several years. When this drum corps from Jersey came to my hometown Birmingham, Alabama, in 1979, it took the crowd, lock, stock, and Civil War gun barrel pratfalls! I loathed it. I was personally embarrassed that “my” drum corps activity had been so demeaned, so insulted, by the insouciance, the lack of discipline (so I perceived it), of this renegade bunch.
In my first years as a public relations volunteer with the activity I tried to get media to focus on stringent exactitude; the media focused on “Thunder and Blazes,” on the “pimp” uniforms, and on the sheer entertainment that The Bridgemen brought to Legion Field. It would be but a few years before that “lack of discipline” I perceived became just the pressure cooker escape valve the activity craved; the pin prick that popped the pomposity of the past.
My perspective yielded. It was true: the evolution was indeed competitive, even among the activity’s most ardent fans. When I sit back and consider the first ten years of the 2000s and the evolution of drum and bugle corps, it remains clear that the best new ideas underscore the best of the activity’s core, no matter when any of us came into the fold.
That point, it seems, is pivotal to the evolution “argument:” what each of us considers bedrocks, or tenets, of the idiom, varies. Finding common ground is often as difficult as is change itself: the grass is always greener likely does not even begin to explain the conundrum.
I’ve grappled with it, however, and have drawn some conclusions of my own: conclusions that I will share over the coming days.
