Band band band!

This weekend, for the second year in a row, I met up with my high school band friends and headed to Allentown for a drum corps competition. Unlike last year, when it rained pretty much the whole time, this year the weather was perfect. I was too transfixed to take any pictures, but when I got back I found some videos to share the awesomeness.

The crowd favorite was definitely Jersey Surf, specifically their rendition of Party Rock Anthem. Yes, Party Rock Anthem (skip to 11:30 for the relevant part):

It was actually pretty neat in person. This video is from a few weeks ago, but on Saturday they had replaced the whole horn line playing the melody with just a few horns playing it into a mic with some sort of filter-y sound effect thing that made it sound cool. I couldn't find a more recent video, though :(

The Cadets are my perennial favorite, but I was slightly nervous when I heard that their show this year was themed around Christmas. It turned out to still be awesome (this video is from a rehearsal, but it's still pretty impressive):
It's weird to think I am (way) too old to participate in drum corps anymore, since you can't be over 21; even the "all ages" version has a max age of 25. Not that I was ever that good anyway, it's just weird to be too old for something that's not, you know, a ball crawl.

Drum Corps!

Yesterday my high school band friends and I drove to Allentown, PA for day two of the Drum Corps International Eastern Classic (for those of you who aren't also band nerds, it's basically a professional marching band competition, and it's awesome). I thought I would try and take some pictures of the bands, but it was raining most of the night so the only picture I got is of me and my friend Joe wearing improvised trash bag ponchos:

My favorite corps is the Cadets (and Joe is an alum!), and this year their show did not disappoint. They split themselves in two and did a pretty epic good vs. evil thing, which included them having two separate uniforms and culminated in a giant "fight" during the percussion feature:


(That video is from earlier in the season, because their colorguard now have much cooler costumes. I also found a video of their whole show here, but it's during a rehearsal and the sound quality isn't great.)

The second coolest show of the night was Carolina Crown, who did a mash-up of classic rock songs and Rachmaninoff, entitled "Rach Star." I couldn't find a great video, but this gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like:



Now I really wish I was going to the championships in Indianapolis next week...