(As an FYI, I decided to update last year's posts with the new links for this year's event page)
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All right, it's simply getting to that time of the year. The time when everyone is all:
HEY! TAKE A LOOK AT DCI!!!! …And I'm all like:
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| HEY, TAKE A LOOK AT TROOPING THE COLOUR AND DCI!!!
(And just to reinforce here—I did cheer for DCI season, so no hate mail! DCI is full of wonderful people.)
So why should you, a DCI watcher (AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT) care about Trooping the Colour (TtC)? Well, I do have several reasons why you should care, and let's begin with…
This is the living history of the marching arts. If it were not for military parades such as TtC, the modern day DCI either wouldn't exist or would be so vastly different that you wouldn't recognize it. Modern day marching bands would either be nonexistent or vastly different. Same story with Bands of America also. You do owe it to yourself to see this at least one time.
Next up is the music for TtC. It's just that good. Each regiment in TtC has its own slow and fast march, which the massed bands play. There is also Les Huguenots, the traditional slow march, and a fast march that changes from year to year.
Then there's the mounted bands. Yes, you read that correctly. The members of this group play their instruments on horseback. The two horses that hold timpani, and you read that correctly also, actually hold a military rank. This alone is worth watching live or watching it via Youtube.
Finally, there is the spin wheel, which can only be described as baffling. The 400-member massed band rotates without changing the block shape. At first, I thought it was merely a rotation. As I kept watching more of them, though, it's more than just a simple rotation. It's actually a move that has never been written down for public consumption, at near-state secret levels of secrecy.
So yes, you should care that Trooping the Colour is coming, if for nothing more than the historical aspect of it.