Date with my cousin

Every year right around my birthday, DCI (Drum Corps Int'l) holds one of their preliminary "summer games" here in Louisiana. It's always a great birthday present to myself. I idolized the kids in these corps when I was in high school and college, you know, being the bank geek that I am.

Luckily for me my cousin Kristi was a band geek too. We twirled rifle together all through high school. She's one of the few people in my "circle" that can really appreciate this sort of thing like I do.

Double lucky for me, this year the competition was in Lafayette, which is where Kristi has settled after tiring of her jet-setting lifestyle dancing in New York and LA. So, I twisted her arm to go with me. OK, I didn't have to twist TOO hard :)

It was awesome. Our seats were on the 50 yard line 8 rows up, and there wasn't anybody crammed right on top of us. We got to see 10 corps, some new, some old, some that I drooled over in high school and college (The Cadets for example). Some quick highlights from each, in order of appearance: (Not too much because you'll be able to youtube them soon I'm sure.)

Teal Sound - Pretty colors, percussion has some cool instruments like a fabric turban.
Boston Crusaders - Quads! Quints! NICE throws with the rifle! Doppler effect with horns. Guardwork was Sick.
Blue Coats - Cool 2 sided flags. Awesome sound. They sing in one part! Cool sound effects. Complex Marching.
Carolina Crown - LOVED this show. Beige uniforms look awesome. Sound awesome. Guard awesome. Percussion awesome. Kristi and I both loved this one best.
Cadets - Guardwork awesome as per usual, double flag throws, 6 ariels. However, I was so distracted by the lame little "play" that I didn't really GET to concentrate on the rest of the show. Apparently it was good because they won over Carolina, but only by a very small margin.
Colts - Very neat "New York" show. Great equipment for the guard. Percussion had different whistles and things that made it sound like New York traffic.
Glassmen - Thier's was a fun circus show with different guard costumes, balloons, and at one point they had some of the guard with tiger and leopard print flags and others of the guard with whips like trainers. Very cute!
Spirit - Pretty. Kristi was quite concerned that the drum major was going to fall off the podium. At one point she said "Oh look they have blue drums" and I thought she said "Oh look they all have boob jobs."
Crossmen - Fun show called "Planet X". They sounded GREAT. At one point the guard twirled giant X's.
Blue Stars - They twirled bicycle wheels! Then hung them on flags to make the guard look like they were RIDING bicycles, then they had these crazy flags with big handles @ the ends, and then the spun/threw bicycle wheels to each other. Fun!

The best part of the night was hanging out the Kristi, geeking out about the same things, and trying to make the most of her living close to me again. We already have our tickets for the cinema broadcast of the quarterfinals in August!

P.S. Does anybody do REAL rifle work anymore? We saw some great throws, but NO spinning.