The North Carolina Trip
So I am finally back to blogging. So much has happened since I last posted here. For one, here is no longer here. Where my blog was once up at http://www.thefoos.com now it has moved to http://www.christhefoo.com. I registered another domain name just for the hell of it. You see, I recently dumped my old host and signed on with a pretty big company. I feel bad about that because the old host was running several drumline and drum corps related websites and I wanted to put money into the activity cause I know a lot of those sites are run for free or on donations by that company but, alas, the company was poorly managed because so much of the staff are actually drum corps staff and you can imagine that in the summmer when they all tour with corps, not much can be done at the home office. So anyway, I am at a new home now. I am slowly moving all the old content back over so for the time being the old site is still up but I anticipate that I will be gone by the end of September.
Well now, on to the story…
As you may or may not know, I am currently the center tenor for the San Francisco Renegades. Throughout the early season and well into the early summer months, the drumline was being hyped as one of the best in DCA. I/we appreciated the hype but the overall feeling from the line (or at least from me) was that we maybe overhyped. I mean, when you are in a drumline, you can’t enjoy the performance yourself because you are constantly hearing what is wrong. Well, we did the shows in California and our scores were first coming back as we expected them too. But then something happened…they went up! It was cool cause by the time we got to the last show in California we were one of the highest scoring DCA drumline in the country. Wow, quite an achievement for us. So then comes the North Carolina trip…
Plane ride goes well for me as it was my first plane ride ever. It was pretty cool. We connect with a bunch of sleepy eyed renegades in Chicago and continue our trek into the dirty south. The only thing I was concerned about was my luggage. I was so sleepy that morning that when I got to LAX I neglected to place a luggage tag on my bag. Those things that have your address so that if your luggage gets lost they can ship it back to you. I was a little freaked out since if they lost it, I would be screwed. My uniform and all my clothes, not to mention all my drumsticks (since they are considered weapons they have to checked) and tools. Luckily it wasn’t lost, though I heard later that Brian’s luggage got lost so he was without everything for the first day. Luckily they found it later that day.
When we get to the hotel we all decide that we are hungry seeing as how we haven’t eaten since 4am and it is now 7pm eastern time. So we head outside and take a walk around and settle down at The Bistro 420
Unfortunately I didn’t get a better pic since I decided to take the picture while I was drunk and stumbling down the street. You see that night, we decided to let loose and drink. Alot. A WHOLE LOT. I think I had 7 or 8 beers. It may not seem like much but I definitely felt it when I found out that we were actually gonna rehearse tonight. Ugh. It was awful. I was messing things up that I never normally mess up. I just kept thinking “Why don’t my arms move faster? Why are they so heavy?” Anyway, after that crapshoot, we head out and drink more. I think I did a tequilla shot and another couple of beers and then a tequilla sunrise before the bar closed. What a great time with everybody. Of course then we head back to the hotel room. I don’t have much to say about the hotel room except that Lee gave me a warning when we were on the plane: Do not drink with this guy….
Don’t drink with him or his brother. I found that out the hard way as did Thom, TJ, and Brian. I am sworn to secrecy about what actually happened but suffice it to say, property damage was involved.
Anyway, we had a full day of rehearsal ahead of us the next day so we had to get up at 6am, tune our drums, get breakfast and get on the bus. The rehearsal started out great. We did our warm ups in a field way in the back of the school. As soon as we finished, the sky opened up and poured down on us. I guess we played the indian rain dance drum music or something cause it really poured down hard on us. We took our equippment and ran for cover. We couldn’t do anything for about 20-30 mins. Then as if nothing happened, the rain cleared up and we were back to buisness. Of course we were all now soaked so it was very miserable, not to mention all the people still hungover from last night. Fun rehearsal indeed.
That night after our rehearsal, we put on Loud Music Symposium South. The mass indoor concert featuring all the corps competing tomorrow night plus the renegades drumline, the renegades guard, and the renegades mini corps. It goes off well and rather than bore you with the details of the show and the competition the next night I will sum up my feeling like this: At Loud Music South, I think we blew our wad and got cocky. It was a fantastic performance and we blew the roof of the Convention Center as well as obliterated the fans but I think if we had saved that performance for the next night, we would have scored higher than third. I am not upset our placement since I think as a performer I did my job. I nailed the show the best I could, I didn’t get overhyped and make dumb mistakes, I adjusted well to what was going on around me. If everyone in the corps could say that, we probably would have got a higher placement but, whatever. The most important thing to me is the memories that I made there and the fun I had there. So I will leave you all with a little piece of those memories and fun.
Lee Rudnicki. The Evil Corps Director.
Thom, my good friend, roomate, and end of the snare line.
Mack, the drill instructor, taking the tequilla shot I bought for him.
On the left, Mike French, Renegades center snare, on the right, Paul Marr, drumline staff member
And finally, tenor player, roomate, and crazy friend, Zach
Thanks for reading!