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DCE Finals Camp/ Finals Performance 2007
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Saturday 29th September 2007
Prelims – Couldn’t sleep in the early hours of Saturday morning…. Ask Ally (who was sleeping next to me on the big mello line bed). I woke her up around 4am to ask her to confirm one of the visual changes – I think she thought I was mad but still managed to answer my question before falling back to sleep!! I had to get up and practice this change – it was a few counts of movement that had been changed the day before. I quietly crept to the toilets up the stairs of doom (some-one fell down them last year) and spent a few minutes going over and over the changes before going back to sleep.
6.30am – woop woop – Finals today!! Started to feel a little stressed as couldn’t find my lucky mellophone prelims pants… but they were hidden at the bottom of my case. Checked with the other mellos and we all had our pants ready to go.
‘Half uniform everyone’ was the repeating shout I could hear coming from Kerrie’s side of the room. We don’t rehearse as a corps on finals day, instead have a musical and visual warm up. When everyone was ready we piled onto the coach to travel to the flyover near the stadium. This is the same warm up site we used in 2006. Just enough room for each section to keep out of any dodgy weather. We had a good musical and visual warm up before the short trip to the stadium for our prelims performance.
The start of the show is backfield with subtle mellophone rhythms. There was little bit of a hesitant start from me and the other mellophones as we didn’t quite catch the count in, but 4 counts in we were on fire. As we turned front field for the first hit we heard the staff shout ‘hit me senators’ and we certainly did. The show flew by – there was so much energy on the field but it felt really controlled. We marched off the field straight onto the coach to go back to Mafkees and there was a sense of contentment during the short journey back. Arriving at Mafkees we had heard on the grape vine that the scores on the doors had been released for a number of corps already – the whispers went round the room that Black Knights had not made finals. Oh my god I felt sick…. We competed against BK only two weeks before at DCUK finals and our scores were very close…. Was this the end of our DCE 2007 experience? I sat with the rest of the mello line and I could tell we were all thinking the same – looking at each other our eyes were welling up as Jo Fitz and the rest of the staff arrived back with the scores. It felt like a lifetime – I was trying to analyse any signs from their faces but they weren’t giving anything away. I just needed one more chance to perfect the opening sets….
OMG! – the scores were read out and the room absolutely erupted with screams, shouts, people jumping around, crying – probably one of my best drum corps experiences to date. To go from the feeling of dread to hearing that the Senators from Eastleigh, Hampshire UK had taken the poll position at the 2007 DCE prelims – it was an amazing feeling. But we couldn’t let excitement get the better of us…. We had to do it all over again that evening.
Finals – Having had a few hours to watch over the videos from prelims and check out any interval errors etc, we spent a bit of time together as a mello line going over music and visuals before donning our lucky show pants in preparation for the performance ahead.
There are many long standing traditions that we went through together as a corps before putting on our uniforms for the final time of the 2007 season. I was feeling extra excited as my mum and dad had called to say they had arrived in Rotterdam and were on their way to the stadium. They had flown over to watch my age out finals – something they haven’t done since about 1999.
The coach took the corps to the normal warm up venue and we had our last basics block of the season. I must admit that I LOVE basics block and I shed a small and quiet tear as we paired up for our final factory work of the 2007 season.
I think I tried to block out the prelims score from my mind as my feet touched the field…. I didn’t want anything to divert my mind from the job ahead. We had an awesome warm up backfield and then marched into the centre of the field. Craig Sherratt called us into the centre line before the show started – he didn’t say much, but he didn’t need to – we knew what we had to do. The field was, how should I put it, as slippery as marching on an ice-skating rink!! but this was the final performance, the one that really mattered – I wasn’t going to let that ruin my show!!
This time the mello line were 110% prepared for the first step off!! And we tore up the field from the first count of the show. Every set I marched I had a zillion things going round in my head that the instructors had told us over the last few days – musical volume levels, marching technique, intervals, dressing, note changes – I wanted my age out show to be perfect.
We got to the end of the ballad – an awesome hit point for the hornline, stood a few paces from the front line. The crowd were going wild as we removed our shakos for the final tune – Clubs. This was by far my favourite suit of the show – funky rhythms, very technical drill – and here I was, potentially the last time I would ever get the chance to enjoy it. It went like a blur and before I knew it were we entering the ‘silent drill’ sets at the end of the piece. I think I speak for the majority of the corps when I say those sets were always pretty scary – only needed one person to count incorrectly and the moment would be ruined – but they came and went to perfection. This only left my hardest drill set of the show to come – a forward jazz run from the 40 to 2 off the 50 yard line, I felt a little nervous with the wet floor underfoot but decided it was now or never and went for it. Well…. Okay I hit the deck – gracefully-ish but I wasn’t going to miss the end of the show so jumped back into set before the last note was played. Even with the fall, it was definitely the best show of my life – something I will always remember.
When the scores were being read out on retreat all I could thing about was the fantastic performance we had done as a corps – had the lucky mello pants had worked their magic?? 5th place, 4th place, 3rd place, 2nd place – I could not believe it, shock, excitement – every emotion all at once – the highest accolade in Europe – the corps was part of drum corps history being the first UK corps to win the title. It was like a dream – the crowd were on their feet – the instructors were jumping around like they had ants in their pants……………. But there we were, still at parade rest, emotions trying to explode – waiting for the command to relax, I thought I was going to burst. I could just hear crying around me (tears of joy!!). ‘Relax’ came from the horn captain and I ran over to the other mellos – all those hours of sweat, pain, tears, everything had brought us to this moment. A magical moment that can never be relived again. 15 years of my life I had dedicated to drum corps to peak on my ageout year with the most fantastic result. Members from other corps came over to congratulate us, there was such a warm atmosphere between all the corps on the field – healthy competition and professional sportsmanship.
We got the chance to perform the show one last time in a repeat performance. ‘No slipping over’ I said to the other mellos during the count in – whoops, we had two go down – but the show was electric – perhaps not as clinical as the finals performance earlier but was performed with passion from all the adrenalin and emotions we were feeling.
Got to sleep around 4.30am – no I wasn’t up all night drinking - just celebrating the moment with my best friends, the only other people that would really understand what I was feeling that night. I kept thinking in my head, coach journey home in a few hours and then back to work – back to normality, boring life as an accountant in an office. I just wanted to savour the moment!!
Shuffle Up and Deal was by far the best written show I have ever had the pleasure of performing, drill wise and music wise. The best Mellophone instructors and the most fantastic mellophone line I have ever spent my weekends with in my whole 15 year marching career. Roll on 2008!!
Helen Bassett
