2004 TKA The Chase


2004 TKA The Chase

2004 TKA The Chase. This post will chronicle the 2004 season of the TKA Marching Lions and the show that we called “The Chase”.

Background

2004 marked my fourth year directing The King’s Academy (TKA) band program. We had some success in 2002 + 2003 at our local/county competitions. The band was seeing modest growth in raw numbers and the attitude of the band members was improving.

They were getting hungry.

We started attending Florida Marching Band Championships (FMBC) in 2002, but we weren’t a serious contender. We were 10th in 2002 and 9th in 2003. At this rate, it was going to take a very long time to make it to the top.

Picking a show

I always chose music first when writing a show. I wrote the drill. (The physical motion of the performers on the field.). The only thing I didn’t design was the colorguard choreography.

I looked for music that I would enjoy and inspired both me and our audience.

Most of the shows came from Arranger’s Publishing Company. I listened to their records/tapes/audio files in order to find something I liked. In 2004 I liked three songs by Bill Chase; Open up Wide, Handbags and Gladrags and Get it On.

I had the music. But I needed to have a theme for the program.

Themes

In 2004 I HATED theme shows. I had a few shows with titles, but I didn’t see them as being necessary. I wasn’t an artsy director. We were more blood and guts. That’s the way LJ had taught us at Norwin.

But, themes were popular. We had done a show called “The Music of Karl Jenkins” in 2003. I didn’t think that we should do “The Music of Bill Chase” in 2004. BORING. And, what do we do in 2005? Are we going to be a band that plays music from a certain composer every year?

We needed a different idea.

I stumbled upon a story from NPR about the Roanoke ballet. They were doing a NASCAR themed ballet. I immediately thought it was a joke…until I saw a photo.

I took the idea to our colorguard instructor, Mrs. S. Could we do a NASCAR show? A “Chase” show?

We were helped by NASCAR themselves. They named their 2004 championship the “Chase for the Nextel Cup“.

Mrs. S immediately started coming up with ideas. We had our theme.

Chase concepts

The show would be called, “The Chase”. Our colorguard and percussion pit would be the pit crew. We movee the pit into the middle of the field. That’s where the pit should be for a race.

The colorguard and percussion wore red coveralls, like a mechanic. But, what about the field?

We decided that we’d ask the parents to build a back field wall.

Framing

We were a small band. There were only 48 performers on the field. Other bands were much larger. 100 yards of turf can swallow up a small band.

The solution to the problem was, framing. You visually cut off part of the field by creating a frame, or backdrop that will make you look larger. You’re basically carving out a part of the field and telling the audience to pay no attention to the rest of the field.

Our frame would be the wall and fence of a racetrack. The parents constructed a wall and painted it to look like a racetrack, complete with audience faces and “The Chase” on the wall.

It was great. I just wished it was 10 yards longer!!

Performance concepts

I wanted to make the show flow counter clockwise. You can decide whether I succeeded. Opening set was two curves that would, hopefully, give the illusion of a racetrack. The lines would jockey back and forth for a lead position.

Somewhere along the line we came up with the idea of having everyone shout, “Drivers, start your engines!” to start the show. I think it came through exceptionally well.

The opener ended with the band condensing and compressing a form on side two. I was trying to give the idea of a crash. A member of our “pit” came running over with a fire extinguisher and sprayed at everyone’s feet.

The second number was a slow motion pit stop after the crash. Almost a flashback idea complete with a slow motion sequence at the four minute mark.

The final number is the end of the race. We ended in a tight form with a colorguard member waving a checkered flag and the band cheering.

The Season

The show played well during the year, but I didn’t think it was necessarily that much better than the year before. I generally put my head down and work once the season begins and don’t notice the progress in overall results.

I also had some personal issues that I was working through.

Band parents

I love band parents, but sometimes they can cause trouble.

I wanted new uniforms for 2004. The old uniforms looked like they came out of the 1950’s. Maybe an over exaggeration. But, the band looked sloppy and saggy and a lot of that was those nasty uniforms.

The problem was, they were only a few years old. I pushed for new uniforms and the band booster president pushed back. He let me move forward, but I got the distinct impression that he expected to see BIG results. Otherwise I’d be in trouble. And he had the ear of the president of the school.

That wasn’t the only band parent issue.

My wife (Brenda) is awesome. There is no way I could have worked the excessive hours without her. She took care of the kids and me. I didn’t have to give home a thought. She had it in control.

Brenda came to the competitions to support me. She wasn’t there to help move equipment around. She kept her eye on me and made sure I was ok.

One of the band moms pulled me aside after our first performance. She told me that she didn’t like giving Brenda a ticket to the show if she wasn’t going to work. I made the mistake of telling Brenda. She didn’t come to shows again until my son was in the band in 2010.

Anxiety/health

I spent a great deal of the 2004 season in a panic. My heart was skipping around like crazy. I went to the doctor, had a stress test done and they said I was absolutely fine.

But, I was sure that I was going to die. One night I woke up with my heart missing beats. I went to the living room, curled up in a ball on the floor and rocked back and forth praying that I wouldn’t die.

I decided to go to the emergency room. When I arrived, they told me to have a seat and wait. How could I wait! Didn’t they understand! I was going to die!

They eventually hooked me up with wires and checked my heart. I could see that my heart was skipping beats. This was bad! I made sure the nurse saw that my heart was skipping beats.

He looked at me and said, “You’ve got to calm down.”.

Easy for him to say, his heart wasn’t popping around like popcorn in a microwave. (Ok, it wasn’t that bad)

I ended up on beta blockers. I’ve written more about my battle with anxiety here. I will sometimes look at candid shots of me during the 2004 season and I can see that my hand is on my neck, just below the jawline. I was checking my pulse!

What a mess.

States

So, I took that baggage with me as we went to states. Brenda joined me for every States trip because she knew I needed her there.

The band performed well and we packed everything up. I decided that we would go off campus to eat. I didn’t think we’d make finals and I thought the kids would enjoy eating something other than stadium food. FMBC only took the top 3 bands. We might make it close to 5, but not top 3.

We came back to the stadium in order to participate in the awards ceremony. When our bus entered the parking lot, they asked us where we were from. When we said, The King’s Academy, they said that the judges wanted to see the director of bands immediately.

“Great! What did we do wrong? Were we not allowed to leave the site?”

I trotted off the bus and made my way toward the field while the bus found a parking spot. I approached the field judges table with my head hanging low like a dog who just chewed up your favorite pair of shoes.

When I identified myself, the judge said, “I told everyone that The King’s Academy had a great show this year!”.

I said, “Thank you”. But I still didn’t know what was going on.

He said, “You made finals”. “We wanted you to know so that you could get your equipment moving toward the finals site.”

I wanted to celebrate but I needed to get in touch with the parent that was driving the equipment truck. And, I didn’t want anyone to know that we made finals. It’s much more fun to watch everyone’s reaction in real time.

Parents pt. 2

I found the band in our usual place…backfield on the far right. I looked around and couldn’t find the parent that I needed to talk to. (Mr. F.) This was 2004 and I was resisting the cell phone craze so I couldn’t call.

I did find a parent who should know where to find Mr. F. But, when I asked about him, the parent refused to allow me to contact him. I pressed the issue and she pulled me behind the bleachers.

She informed me that I was insensitive to the needs of the parents and that Mr. F had worked very hard and was resting back at the hotel. I told her that I appreciated Mr. F but it was vital that I contact him. She refused.

I blew up. Many things came out of my mouth, but the highlight was that I told her we had made finals and that Mr. F needed to wake up and get the equipment moving. I believe I also mentioned something about her ruining the entire experience.

Apologies began spilling from her mouth while we made the necessary contacts.

Going to finals

It was great fun to sit in the semi-finals award ceremony with the knowledge that we had made it into the top 3. I found a place to sit on the sidelines and watched my drum major’s reaction. It was a thing of beauty.

My heart skipped a few beats when they said our name, but wasn’t that what you’d expect?

We herded the kids onto the bus and headed to the finals site, which was quite far away.

It took us forever to get to the site. We didn’t have google in ’04. There was no ‘real time’ way of knowing when we’d arrive. No way of knowing what the traffic was like, etc.

I kept looking at my watch. I knew our warm up time and it looked like we would barely make it…

Then it looked like we wouldn’t make it…

And, then the heavens opened.

We experienced a Florida deluge. Our bus arrived on site at about the time we were supposed to be warming up. I jumped out and trotted to the registration area. I was informed that everything was on hold because of the rain.

Thank goodness! Now we’d have enough time to warm up. All we had to do was wait for the rain to end.

It didn’t stop raining. A colleague approached me and said that finals would be cancelled. I strenuously disagreed. I remember his response.

“Eric, there is a foot of standing water on the front of the field. This event is over.”

About an hour later, the event organizers confirmed that finals would be cancelled and that awards would be handed out based on semi-finals standing. We were in 3rd place.

Postlude

Brenda and I got soaked to the bone that afternoon and I remember that we got pretty sick afterwards. The A/C from the charter bus was blowing on us while we sat in the parking lot. (Why didn’t we just say something?)

We had proven that we had a strong program at TKA. From 2004 through 2015 everyone in class A kept their eyes on us.

Our new uniforms were simple and clean. I remember receiving a compliment from a local director at the beginning of the season. He said, “That’s you guys?” “You look like a Bands of America mid-western band!”

Looking back, I should have known that we were on to something.

I weaned myself off of the beta blockers a few months later. Just in time to start planning for the 2005 show. But, how do you top “The Chase”!?

Check back next week.

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4 responses to “2004 TKA The Chase”

  1. Hey Eric!

    Really enjoyed this trip down memory lane – what a season. Us kids had no idea you had those issues going on at the time. Thanks for inspiring us day in and day out through it all.

    Sending love to you and the fam!

    Greg

    P.S. The duet in movement #2 was quality 🙂

    • GREG!!

      You helped make that show great! Yes, your saxophone playing in the second number was fantastic!

      I’m glad that you guys didn’t know about the dark sides of the year. It’s kind of like a duck going across the surface of the water. Things look smooth, but under the water there’s a lot of tumult!

      Good hearing from you!

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