America/Oh Canada

I really don't even know what to say about this. For being a corps with such a high age out rate you would expect a little more maturity.

I hope the BD organization releases some sort of statement.

I would love some input, as I couldn't make it to finals this year.

1. I wasn't so sure that it came from the BD block.
2. Who knows why they did that. They might have just been having some fun. It doesn't have to be because they're sore losers. If you listen to other mass brasses, there's a lot of crap coming from a lot of horns. As much as it sucks, not everyone takes it so seriously - ESPECIALLY on Finals night.
3. I'm surprised nobody mentioned the fact that when the Cavies got into their retreat block, they appeared a little..."absurd". Cracked me up. Plus, they were the only corps to troop Phantom and congratulate them/shake hands with them after being dismissed.

Moral of the story: don't be so quick in drawing conclusions about an organization.

That's just un-acceptable. I would expect much more of them...guess not. C'mon guys...

Hmm, I'm going to go out and ask if they got in any trouble, Not BD, I know everyone else was screwing around too. But did any of the high brass get in any trouble? And... Your probably not aloud to say, but what did the Cavvies block look like?

True. Crowns Guard was dancing around the whole time. Watching the smaller cavalier walking a tight rope on the yard line as they came on play "red light, green light".

When the Cavies came in, some of them were doing flips. Others were pretending to be walking a tight rope. It was fairly obvious. Also, I thought that the screamers were coming from the Bluecoats block, but who knows.

But seriously, for those of you not very familiar with Finals retreat, most corps have made it more of a tradition to screw around on the field because it's the last time that you're going to be with that group of people. Why NOT have fun? I mean, Crown even participated in the wave with the crowd before scores were announced. Scouts' basses hung out in the back end zone until they were forced to leave by a DCI official. ALL of the corps members were cheering for their respective corps when they showed the video montage. It was a big cluster, and that's what makes it finals retreat.

Quoted for truth.


However, last night I did see the director of BD in a 5-10 second interview on the Video on DCI.org's news article for Phantom's win and he seemed a bit bitter. I just went back to see it again for this discussion and its gone. Maybe when he basically brushed off the loss and said something similar to saying that they didn't need the win, because "We're the most decorated corps in Drum Corps International" he realized that may have seem a bit of a knee jerk, harsh reaction and he asked for them to take it down. That clip isn't on the video now.

forgive my ignorance, but what happened? ( i swear im not being stupid, but i didnt see anything.) maybe i just didn't watch the video enough

Listen right away, note when everyone is laughing, and the high brass is just screaming, and went past the cut off. Thats what were talking about, every corp was doing something like that, or randomly smashing notes out.

oh ok thanks for telling me.

That clears it up a little. I've never been to a finals retreat. But the fans on the BD forums are sore losers. Lots of the argueing has died down by now, it's all good. But before, they were in a riot!

Yeah don't accuse what was going on if you have never been in a retreat block lol. Cavaliers Drumline, when I was marching, would bring jolly ranchers out onto the field and toss them around.

And you know what, sure when someone looses there is going to be lots of arguing? Have you ever been to a DCI finals? On the way out of the 7 I have been too you always hear 20 different opinions on who should win and then you see the arguing on forums like these.

Its the same thing with sporting events. "This team should have won the World Series " etc.... and those are not even biased events. You have a clear cut winner and looser and people still argue.

So why not just let it happen instead of intervening what you say is the inevitable?

Cavies are notorious for screwing around at retreats (i.e. throwing candy at other corps, etc...)

As punishment for their irreverence with particular emphasis on the desecration of the Canadian national anthem, actual guilt not withstanding, I sentence them to having to travel from Indianapolis, IN to Concord, CA by bus, a most cruel penalty even for 20 year old knees.

Retreat at finals is generally a laid back, fun atmosphere as some others have discussed. It's the last night of a long and difficult summer so a lot of people let loose a little. Sure, some people cross the lines of decency but those are a limited number.

After scores are announced there is always the general dissention. Devs were probably a little miffed that they didn't win because a lot of people thought they should have. That probably brought out some anger in a select few. It would have been the same thing had Devs won and PR got second. Just like any competitive activity there will always be the Monday morning quarterbacks.

...and for the record, when I was in retreat we never threw candy at other corps. We usually went to retreat with a few bags of Jolly Ranchers and we would toss them back and forth between ranks but it was never a hateful thing. Of course there was this one time when a member of another (not to be named here) corps made a derogatory comment to one of our bass drummers. The basses then threw sticky Jolly Ranchers at him laughing as they stuck to his uniform. That was done solely to be mean spirited.

Oh I wasn't saying they were throwing them AT other Corps to be hateful lol. I do remember a couple times seeing the Cavs throw them at some of the girls in our Corps. I guess it is mans way to flirt, ha ha ha..

That story is golden, thanks for sharing.

There is one Open Class corps who took the Jolly Rancher idea without understanding it too terribly well and ended up denting some of Memphis Sound's horns a couple of years ago.

Blue Devils are well-known to be very relaxed during retreat. If they're with another group that's relaxed, it's a great time. If they're with another group that is a little more "traditional" . . . well, they generally tell whatever jokes they can (among other tactics) to get the other corps' members to break. Their sops are also well known for screaming during pretty much any rendition of America (in the past 6 years at least). Memphis had a retreat with them a couple of years ago (somehow :-p), and several of our staffers had stories to tell of BD's thirds screaming during the song higher than their own corps' leads. The BD marchers we had on staff generally found the stories to be amusing and true.

That being said, is it definitely BD doing that? Can't be 100% certain. Do leads from every corps do that? No, but most. Do the Devs have a history of that at regular shows without a full retreat? At least since 2005 that I've heard of specifically, and since the early 2000s vaguely. It's very likely, though I'd definitely say they weren't alone in their "play."

Edit: After actually watching the video a few more times, I'm gonna have to say it IS Blue Devils as the main culprits. I'm not basing it one the volume of the mistakes or supposed proximity to them of the camera, but rather the sound. You guys can pick out Crown's drumline from an audio recording, and probably Cavies, BD, etc. based on the drums' sound and the writing. While I don't have the writing to go on here, those are almost definitely Dynasty horns with the Blue Devils' technique making the vast majority of those noises. There aren't too terribly many other corps that use Dynasty horns in the Top 12 (Glassmen I think is it), and they weren't close enough to BD to be that confusing.

not trying to start some crap, but devs have always done stuff like this at retreats, i remember looking forward to their sops hanging over, but it was never this tasteless, well not in my day

Having BEEN at Finals retreat, and having a ton of friends thathave marched at Devs, Iknow for a fact this type of stuff happens.

They do it for fun, because they won't be getting into trouble, and because lets face it...The corps do NOT like playing America O'Canada at the end of retreat. They want to get the scores and GTF out of there. Say their good-byes and go home.

In 2002, I was involved in the Bass Walk with Glassmen's and Crossmen's basslines. Took us about 25 minutes to get from the tunnel to our blocks.

This stuff happens every year. It's not being sore losers..I'm sure they woulda done the same thing had they won.

Well put. Of course, he played at Boston, of course it was well put.

But either way, like someone mentioned earlier, even if they were being sore losers, they have somewhat of a right to be. If I was part of the Glassmen, which I may very well be one year, and we worked super-duper hard all summer to come in second next to someone who beat us by .025, I might be a little ticked.

I found that hilarious and got a picture, and as for cavvies fooling around, I also found that hilarious!

I understand Corps will screw around, but whenever it involves the sounds of our country and our neighbors to the north, I feel there should be a little more respect. If they just squealed, that would be fine, but that really just made it sound... bad. However, that is just based of that ONE video. Perhaps it didn't sound that bad live.

It sounded pretty bad, but i found it really entertaining. Besides, it could be that squealer's last time on field in DCI, just let the people have fun.

The sounds of our country? Eh . . . it's one of the worst arrangements I've ever played. We heavily edited it just to make it bearable to play, let alone listen to. Plus, it's not our national anthem.

It wasn't just the bluedevils. I could pick out sounds coming from pretty much every corps there.

No one said it was only the Blue Devils. Just that it was primarily the Blue Devils. I'm betting it wasn't Regiment or Crown much at all. Neither's staff likes messing around like that. Hell, Regiment's staff doesn't even like it when they mess around and it sounds good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYfMfcMxVII

So this brung an Idea to my head. Why do we play America O' Canada, Is there any World Class corp from canada anymore? And even when they don't play around, I will have to admit, there are parts to it that are not very nice on the ears. (Mine at least) It just dosn't sound patriotic, It sounds sort of obnoxious, Like the high brass entrance.

All I can say is I'm infinitely grateful we didn't have this kind of video coverage and the ability to spread videos like this around the net when I marched. If people could have seen/heard what went on both before and after the scores at finals the forum flames would be seen from outer space. Only during the reading of the scores were we anything close to resembling serious. I'm sure there's some old Scouts out there remember the fun we had with them. Good times.

I don't know about World Class, but remember that DCI isn't just World Class as most bandos assume. There are some Open Class corps from Canada. I kind of wish we'd go back to the Boerma arrangement or before.

I know there were open class corps from canada, But thats what got me thinking. No open class corp is there to play "America O' Canada" Why do they play it? I understand representing the entire DCI foundation, but if it's just those top 8 corps there to play the retreat that they earned...Why do they play that song? Why not just "America the Beautiful"

"top 8 corps"? When did finals shrink from 12?

Personally, I'm not a fan of the whole mass brass thing anyway. Either do an old school retreat or skip playing at all (other than the encore, of course). I don't really want to hear a cheesy arrangement of "America/O Canada" played poorly.

Speaking of which... Sore losers? Give me a break. I'd be amazed if there weren't multiple people from multiple corps doing nasty screams and hanging over. (Don't all soprano/trumpet players do that? ) Assuming a few of them might've been from the Blue Devils, they probably would've done it win or lose.

There were plenty of shenanegans to be had most werent over the top, And I found Crowns guard, and the phantom drum major to be quite entertaining.... however from where I was sitting I found most of the poor desicion making in the bluecoats block, I was sitting just in front of the cadets, They not only over played, (as most corps do during AOC), but many member chosed to play on WELL after the cutoff, all those extra sounds on the end were from the coats, not the devs. on one even choose to blow his horn even after the rerst of the corps decided to stop. (IE to get the last sound in) When thier scores were announced many of them cheered and hooped an hollered, when they found they beat SCV. very unclassy.

The Open Class (and International . . . and up until last year Div III) champion is at World Class retreat unless they've changed things this year. There very well could be a Canadian corps out there every now and then. Besides, if they cut O Canada from it, just go ahead and call it Drum Corps America . . . or I guess DCUSA since DCA's already taken.

An apology for the behavior at retreat -- from a blue team, but not the one accused at the start of the thread:

http://www.bluecoats.com/news_detail.asp?news_id=271

Hmm...I never would've expected that. Oh well. At least they're having some fun after a long summer

Well, Something tells me if this is as big of a tradition as it seems to be. The Bluecoats will be doing the same thing next year. Who knows, they may be able to stop it, But I have a feeling its just going to be a wasted effort.

I don't think its ever been overdone to the point where its distasteful before.

Though, maybe it has. I just haven't seen any controversy over it until now.

I want to know where he got tradition out of one year... minor shenanigans are one thing, usually is restraned to members over hype high note, cutoff, and volume because its an un-judged performance, but What some of bluecoats did was far beyond distasteful, it was distracting, and offensive and the people Ive spoken to (who were on the field that night, in the coats and other corps) were embarrased by what a few members did.

I think that particular apology is being issued more in regards to another issue people had with retreat; not so much the music. Of course, they're being vague in the apology, so we can't really be sure.

Everyone was just talking about how its a big tradition to screw off at the finals retreat?

Apparently, the kids who did not age out of Bluecoats this season were actually not invited to return next season. For anyone who doesn't know the list of grievances is as follows:

1.)Members were completely hammered drunk.
2.)They were throwing candy at members of other corps.
3.)One of the members (a friend of mine actually) drilled a hol