The evolution with be competitive

I lost it at the movie “Here Come the Troopers,” but here I was, a brand new fan in the stands, at my first live drum and bugle corps competition: 1973, Bluegrass Nationals, Lexington, Kentucky.

My puppy love was dashed by the very first corps to “enter the field in competition.” The directive was interpreted literally those days; but instead of entering, each member of this unit laid down along the back sideline, randomly, and in various poses. The gun sounded, and one by one the members came to their feet, upright, and began to march and to play. Finally, uniformly, militaristically; the way drum corps was supposed to be. All they had to do was ask me: I’d have told them.

Luckily that performance was a malapropos. I did lose it – propriety, my head, cascading tears – during the performance of inaugural Drum Corps International champion Anaheim Kingsmen. Spit and polish, sheen and sparkle, precision and power embodied all that I “knew” to be the tenets of drum and bugle corps.

When I lost it to the field of competition, stringent exactitude in drill patterns (marching and maneuvering) won the day. Two-valve horns in the key of G produced enough volume to “push the stands back.” The section was called drums, and every one of them – large and small -- did, while marching. Color guards provided the only additional color to the field, in a one-size-fits-all palate and in mostly simplistic up and down military exercises. Lying down on the field just didn’t cut it, I thought.

At the end of this first decade of the 21st century, the evolution in both field and floor continues -- competitively and controversially. I had to go to the root of my experience to discern the where, the how, and even the why of the progression. But know this: I had a long way to go in my personal journey to get here.

You see, while my love, and perspective, of drum and bugle corps was metastasizing to my heart in the early 70s, I was simply unprepared for the riotous groundswell that would whack the activity on the back of its stylistic head in 1976: The Bridgemen.