Band camp

There wasn't room to do a story for the paper tomorrow, so I'll pass it along here.

I went down to Tinseltown tonight to see what was going on at the DCI Quarterfinals. That's Drum Corps International, to you and me. They had a live feed on one of the theater screens from Madison, Wis. (birthplace of your faithful correspondent), of the final 17 drum corps ("don't call them bands") performing at the championships.

About 100 people showed up, both current marching band members and some former band folks who are still fans.

So consider: Tickets to the event were $18 each. And the quarterfinals were supposed to last about six hours. Those are some dedicated fans.

It was interesting -- sort of a football game halftime show on steroids. The uniforms, the drills, the showmanship were all taken up a couple notches over what I've seen before. Plus, they had play-by-play and color announcers, even a field reporter. Pretty entertaining really, although six hours would have been a leeetle much for me.