A happy drum corps Canada Day 2019!

A happy drum corps Canada Day to my readers!  To celebrate this first of three patriotic holidays I observe during July, I'm continuing my tradition of featuring Canadian drum corps by decade from before the advent of Drum Corps International (DCI) up to the current century.

Since I've shared videos of the Toronto Optimists and Preston Scout House, it's about time I gave the De La Salle Oaklands their turn in the spotlight as the featured pre-DCI corps, so here is the corps' 1969 show.

An audio-video review of De La Salle Drum Corps in 1969, celebrating its 60th year of operations. Del won the Ontario Championship in '69 for the second year in a row and won the first of three Canadian Championships in a row.

Follow over the jump for corps from the 1970s to the 21st Century.


Representing the first decade of the DCI era, I'm presenting 1977 Seneca Optimists Slideshow.

A slideshow comprising performance, rehearsal and casual shots of the 1977 Seneca Optimists, including images from the trip to Denver for DCI. The background music is the 1977 Seneca Optimists field show. This slideshow was created for the Seneca Optimists reunion in February, 2006.

DCI apparently just missed uploading a clip of this show to its YouTube channel, as the 1977 Seneca Optimists were the download of the week for February 14, 2011, while the earliest download of the week I can find is from March 9, 2011 of the 1979 Guardsmen.  As Maxwell Smart used to say, "missed it by that much."

To represent the Canadian drum corps scene in its full glory, I always include a Quebec corps and usually include a senior corps.  The unit I am using as for the 1980s is both, 1983 L'Odyssée.


One disappearing act deserves another one.  Besides, I'm a sucker for drum corps shows with speculative fiction themes.

For the 1990s, I'm going to repeat myself with the 1990 Dutch Boy, the last Canadian corps to make DCI finals.


On the one hand, this is the same year and corps I embedded three years ago.  On the other, I think this is a different performance, as the one I shared before was from Semifinals, while this is from Finals.  Also, it's an official clip from DCI, who didn't make it easy to locate.  Here's the comment I left at the video.

I was looking for an official clip of 1990 Dutch Boy on Friday. Took until Tuesday to find it. Here's hoping this comment makes it easier to find next time I search. Notice there is no mention of the corps actual name anywhere?

It helped.

I mentioned above that I'm a sucker for drum corps shows with speculative fiction themes.  That's why the last corps I'm featuring is Kiwanis Kavaliers 2002, the superhero show.

Kiwanis Kavaliers 2002 - Superhero Show Final run through in Madison, Wisconsin.

That arrangement of Jonny Quest alone made the show for me.

While the 2002 Kiwinis Kavaliers is the last corps I'm featuring today, it's not the last or most recent Canadian competitive unit at DCI.  That honor goes to the Calgary Stampede Showband, who competed in 2018 SoundSport at DCI.

Two-time SoundSport Indy Champions - Calgary Stampede Showband

It's about time I included a unit from western Canada in these posts.  While it's a band, it's at least a unit that competed at DCI during Championships Week.

That it for today, so "it's time to recycle San.  It wouldn't be one of my Canada Day posts without her."