Once again, my uncle Bruce and I joined forces in his West Salem compound to pay tribute to a great drum corps, this time the Cavaliers. We didn’t have a specific format to our show choices, choosing to simply pick shows throughout the Green Machine’s history that we enjoy and remember fondly. We also had a special guest as my cousin Molly joined us for part of the tribute.

1989

The Cavaliers had started their first surge into the DCI upper echelons earlier in the 80s, thanks to the arrival of Steve Brubaker and the partnership with the Chicago suburb of Rosemont. The corps broke into the top 5 of DCI for the first time in 1985, with a couple of 3rd place finishes the following seasons. The Cavies took a chance with their rendition of the Firebird in 1988 and, while the corps dropped back to 5th, the progression of the performance level and design of the Green Machine so moved forward as a result.

1989 saw the Cavaliers place 3rd again, but the corps improved to another level of sophistication with their performance of John Rutter’s Gloria. The opening movement alone made a statement that this was a Cavaliers corps which was ready to contend, with a gorgeous backfield musical opening paired with Brubaker’s signature kaleidoscopic visual design.

The show made use of Cavaliers visualmoments from the past few seasons, including the classic undulating snake drill during the 3rd movement of the show, Images Diabolique, which also featured thundering percussion as the guard joined the percussion section while pounding on drum heads suspended in frames. The guard would return to percussions during the closing moments of the show, picking up cymbals to add impact to an impressive company front moment before finishing with high velocity and intensity.

The Cavaliers scored a 97.2, the highest Finals score for the corps to that point. They wouldn’t eclipse that score until winning their 1st DCI championships in 1992, but that comes later in our tribute.