Hard Corps

July 13, 2009 by Haley Etchison 

A day of struggle and triumph with The Academy Drum and Bugle Corps

Ever heard of drum corps? It’s like the kids you made fun of in high school have all amped up their coolness by 500 percent, built themselves bodies of steel and come back to melt your face off with sound.

So, maybe you’ve never heard of them – drum corps is a pretty obscure subculture. But they’re not concerned with fame. This bunch spills blood, sweat and tears all summer long, all for a sense of unity, community, excellence and the thrill of a near-perfect performance.

Sam Boyd Stadium hosted a drum corps show last Monday – the first in Las Vegas since 1981 – and as a veteran of one of the performing corps I got to follow a group of 150 performers around for a day and document what goes on in the crazy, horrific, amazing world of drum corps.

Drum Corps International, the organization that organizes most drum corps competitions and a national contest in August, is comprised of more than 20 groups that compete in June, July and August all across the country.

My alma mater The Academy, a corps based in Tempe, Ariz., had a show in San Diego the night before, leaving for Las Vegas at around 11 p.m in three tour buses.

I got a text from one of my friends at 5:41 a.m. saying they had arrived at Las Vegas High School and were hitting the sack.

They hauled themselves off the buses, grabbed their bags and stumbled into the gymnasium. For fifteen minutes the gym filled with the whirring sounds of air mattresses being filled, as everyone prepared to go to sleep. Rehearsal started at 9 a.m.

At eight, the tour director switched the lights on, rolled a portable speaker into the gym (turning it up to 11, of course) and blasted “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Quite the wake-up call.

Breakfast in the parking lot, then out to the field. The corps – girls clad in shorts and bikini tops and guys in less than that – gathered their gear from the semi truck parked nearby.

The morning rehearsal block left the front ensemble (often called the “pit”) and the drumline to rehearse together on the football field without the rest of the ensemble, repeating 30-second sections of the corps’ 10-minute show dozens of times. The staff – comprised of battle-hardened veterans of legendary drum corps who have, incredibly, decided to devote still more months to the activity – directed the progress from atop the announcer’s booth.

By 10 a.m. every member was drenched in sweat, but by now they didn’t worry about re-applying sunscreen because, after two months of 12-hour-a-day rehearsals in the Arizona sun before their tour began, their skin is too tanned to burn.

As the hours wore on, the marching drummers’ arms, legs and backs began to flex with the strain of running with identical form across the field, carrying 10- to 20-pound instruments on their bodies – but they can handle it. They are tough – conditioned every day using a system their instructor had adapted from cage fighter training.

Their tradition of punching and kicking each other to make their bodies strong and resilient is unique even in the drum corps world and these guys believe it’s part of what makes them brothers.

Those in the front ensemble believe what they do requires their whole body, mind and soul as well. That philosophy keeps them playing when, an hour into practice, the blisters in the centers of their hands and behind the knuckles on their middle fingers rip off and bleed.

By this time in the season they have learned what kind of medical tape sticks the best, so they tossed a roll around the group, wrap their wounds and keep playing.

By 2 pm., the whole corps was together on the field after a quick lunch break. This year’s show, “The Ascent,” began to unfold as they worked through each section toward a final run-through at the end of rehearsal.

Afterward the corps had an hour to shower, pack up and get back on the bus, where they would change into their black and red uniforms and prepare for competition.

I met back up with The Academy as they were beginning their warm-up in the parking lot of Sam Boyd Stadium. The pit played an adaptation of Thom Yorke’s “The Eraser” to get in the groove of communicating with each other like they would have to during the show. Soon they wheeled their caravan of equipment to the gate and met up with the rest of corps waiting to enter the field.

For those of you who have never seen a drum corps performance, this is all you need to know: There is a point in every good show when the corps will play louder than you ever thought geeky band kids could.

Seriously. It may just singe the hair off your arms. And I can tell you there’s no feeling quite like being a part of that kind of noise.

It’s addictive.

Tomorrow it’s on to another city and another chance to feel the high.