Members Blogs
Mark "Feet" Abbott's May Bank Holiday Weblog
Mark is in his 14th year as a member of the Senators Drum and Bugle Corps. (before that he was in Senators Cadets). He plays Baritone and ages out this year.
Saturday 30th April-2nd May 2005
Aching Legs, Wet Socks, Mud, Sunburn, Windburn, Chapped Lips, Hayfever, Lunchtime Footie Injuries… yep it’s the first full 3-day outdoor rehearsal of 2005!
We’ve been outside quite a few times already learning drill, but only for the odd day. This was 3 days, 10am till 7.30pm, 9am till 7:30pm and 9am till 4pm - No Retreat, No Surrender!
Saturday started early for a few of us. Me, Nick Hale and John Westron (both Sopranos) have been “volunteered” to be Field Crew for the summer - basically setting up the field before every rehearsal.
Paul Brakewell (another Sop) is also on the Crew, but manages to get out of it by flying to California all the time (to march SCV!!)… Actually, I’ve just realised Paul is the only non-age out on the team, Age Discrimination if you ask me!!
In the interests of keeping this short (ish), I won’t go into detail about what we did each day, I’ll summarise! First though I’ll give you a really basic rundown of a normal summer rehearsal here. It goes:
Set up the field!
Stretch outs / Drill Basics
Rehearsal Block (usually visual)
Lunch (football)
Block (visual or music or both)
Dinner (sometimes!)
Block (ensemble)
Finish…
Timings subject to change!!
Well, like I said, we’d done some drill before the bank holiday weekend, but still, we learnt a big chunk of the show in these three days. We worked hard this weekend and I’ll be honest I was hurting for a decent amount of Saturday and Sunday! In fact, I was so knackered by the time I got home I didn’t make it out to the bright lights of Eastleigh AT ALL.
It’s times like that when I know I really am aging out this season! I apologise in advance to the Littern Tree and The Tavern for any loss of profits this summer… On Monday I felt pretty good though, so maybe I’ve turned the corner? We’ll have to see.
Anyway, we did motor through the first two days and by Monday we had the first three pieces, Incredible Mission, Mission Impossible and Who Wants To Live Forever, on the field with music, a total of about 6 minutes - maybe a bit more.
We're looking forward to getting the 4th piece, Cuba (definitely the Hornlines favourite) on the field at the next rehearsal!
I’m really enjoying the show in general this year. All the music is entertaining, recognisable and fun to play. The show is pretty much 100% new to Drum Corps as well which is great and something we’ve been wanting to do for a while. I think people will be really interested in what we put out this summer, it’s different again for us as a corps and I’m looking forward to June!
Speaking of different, we had the final fittings for the new uniforms recently as well - they're all really comfortable and the sleek and sophisticated look should definitely turn a few heads.
A change has been a long time coming and I really like the look of them. It’s definitely the biggest change of uniform we’ve ever had, even more than going from the Tails Tunics to the “Big Brown” back in ‘92 and our conversion to being a Drum Corps. The shoes will be a lot easier to clean as well!!
Anyway, I’ll leave it there, don’t forget to check out my Bruv and the other lads on Top of the Pops with Gwen on Friday and other random music shows over the weekend.
Rock and Roll!
Mark Abbott
