2024: Making New History

Deep in the woods of the Oregon Coastal Range, spring training for the Cascades started with a mix of typical early summer sunny days and cool nights. This magical time gave the members and staff the opportunity to focus and bond as a team with visits to many charming small towns, including a home-grown parade and firework show on the 4th of July in Vernonia, Oregon.

The competition season began in the Pacific Northwest where for the first time in the organization’s history, The Cascades/NYMA sponsored and ran three drum corps competitions! The first show in Portland, Oregon was a wild day of preparation that ended with an exciting performance capped with our first “ahhhhhhhhh” from the lighthouse turned telescope in our production of Sky Above.

This also marked the return of souvenirs offered to our fans at competitions, something that has not been available since the 2019 season.

Not the typical cool and easy July NW weather, it was a scorcher the entire time the corps were here, not Texas hot, but close! Somehow, we thought this might toughen us up for Texas heat to come.

Everyone enjoyed a much-earned free day in the big and exciting city of Seattle: Pike Place Market, the first Starbucks, the waterfront, Mariners game, the quirky Gum Wall and lots of delicious foods.

The tour then journeyed through the Rockies. Once the corps is on the road in the West, the overnight drives become long and the rehearsal days short. Perfect or not, it was imperative that we got on the road with a full show. Those days saw the show stabilize and the organization start to become a well-oiled touring machine conquering the daily challenges.

Over the Rockies and through the plains landed the team in the pan handle of Texas. The Texas Tour is always an exercise in pushing past limitations, but managing exposure to the sun and the need to just get better was a challenge that paid off. The Cascades had not beaten another World Class corps in seven years and enjoyed a solid placement above Jersey Surf which continued all summer, even passing up Genesis by a humble 1/tenth of a point, bringing the competitive climb to 2 World-Class corps. Fans, family, alumni, judges and DCI certainly took notice and shared many congratulations on the growth of the organization. These days were a huge emotional pivot for the members and staff to push even harder.

The corps then took a much-deserved break and visited the historic city of San Antonio, taking in the River Walk, the Alamo, and many other sights.

Over the years, a long-time design strategy for many corps has been to make large show rewrites after San Antonio. The Cascades decided to take it one step further. Now known as the Anti-Swamp Tour, after the last Texas competition in McKinney, the corps took an unprecedented 4 days off from the DCI tour to specifically address some larger sections of the show design including adding in planned events such as the tarps and 4 corners of the earth sails and flags.

Next up was NightBEAT in North Carolina where the corps would show off its’ thematic completion and hard work. The Cascades received a 3-point score bump, our biggest jump of the season!

The East coast then brought the rain, and then more rain, some lightning, and then even more rain. We had an unprecedented 3 rained out shows with no scores, no full Allentown experience, and rarely having direct comparisons to our closest competitors. This was certainly the wildest lead-in to the DCI Championships anyone could imagine. Completely in the dark about how we truly faired in the grand scheme of DCI’s rankings and ratings.

Since times were awkward and constantly in flux due to lightning protocols, ever-changing schedules, and lots of soggy days, the Friday of Allentown the corps took some time off to recharge by having a pool party and enjoy the remaining time together. The joy and friendships of the season became clear as the members laughed the stress away.

Rolling into DCI World Championships, there was a polite unspoken anxiety about the placement possibilities of prelims. Not competing against any Open Class corps and having rarely competed with any World Class corps over the previous 2 weeks made everything an unknown.

However, Cascades’ DCI Prelims performance was the best of the season! Since the first 2 performance blocks in prelim competition had many potentially direct competitors, along with the lack of current scores coming into prelims, DCI postponed announcing scores until after two preliminary blocks of corps; it was a long wait full of anticipation.

Once announced, we learned our prelims performance had landed us in 23rd place, qualifying for semi-finals and the highest placement since 2016! Our preliminary score of 77.225, a 2.7 score jump, was our second biggest jump of the season and the highest score since 2007! We were thrilled that we absolutely crushed our 2024 goals and still had one more opportunity to perform.

The Semi-Finals performance was the most mature performance of the season. The members were hungry to perform even better and with a relaxed and confident vibe we held onto our 23rd placement with a score of 76.07.

Members and Staff then enjoyed a Saturday filled with banquet celebrations, taking photos, and attending DCI Finals. These last hours were full of cheers and tears as we celebrated the season’s successes and mourned the end of the 2024 family. Cascades history has been written and now we look towards the possibilities in the sky above.

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