January 2000, Greg came to me and said "The ‘Devils’ are touring Europe, do you fancy going to see them"? Where abouts', I asked , thinking somewhere in England? That’s the problem he said, they are only touring Holland, France and Germany where would you prefer. So after about 2 seconds consideration, I told him to count me in and suss it out.

Next thing I new, Greg had pulled the itinerary for the Devils proposed tour and also plane / train times, costs, hotel availability and booking information from the Net.

After looking over the itinerary, we felt that the weekend they were playing at Breda and Eindhoven in Holland was the best option and so away Greg set, booking things up. Changes of itinerary then followed however the Breda weekend stayed put.

In between then and the Devils gig, we had arranged a trip to London to see the last performance of the Blast run at the Hammersmith Odeon. We drove down on Good Friday, Greg had arranged that we would stay the weekend at some of the Blast cast members house. Saturday afternoon was spent shopping and sightseeing and before the show, we had arranged to meet up with Ian MacMillan and Craig Ferguson who had flown down in the morning and were staying with David Brough who now lives in London. Blast were great!!! After the final curtain, a few words by the staff, the cast congo'd out into the London night to a percussion cadence.

The next morning while getting ready to leave for the trip upraroad, Greg spotted the kids in the house had a laptop and duly logged on to book us up for ‘The Devils’, that was it, flights booked, hotels reserved, train timetables downloaded, and credit cards severely battered.

The weeks past quickly as the Devils trip got closer, two things still bothered me:

First, the night before the 6.00 am ‘Sleezyjet’ flight to Luton I was going to see Tina turner at Hampden park and wasn’t looking forward to the late night / early rise scenario. The second was that throughout all this hi tech sourcing information, booking / reservations etc and parting with hard earned dosh, I didn’t have anything to show for it, no hotel confirmation, no flight tickets. Just Greg telling me that everything was in hand and that technology wouldn’t let us down. Very reassuring, hmmm I wasn’t convinced.

Saturday 8/7/00 soon arrived and after picking Greg up at about 4.00 am I asked if he had everything especially his passport when it occurred to me that I didn’t have mine (oops) fortunately not far back to mine to pick it up.

Having parked up and entered the airport, my trepidation about technology started to rise sharply as we approached the Easyjet check in however all went well and we were checked in. (Greg at this point was still going on about me forgetting my passport). Nightmare! that’s the only word I can think of to describe the planes decent and landing at Luton airport, ma heed wus thumpin when it finally landed.

I was beginning to feel a bit more confident, following our first encounter with check in.’s about technology booking all parts of our travel and accommodation, but I still wasn’t convinced as we approached check in No. 2 for our connection to Schipol airport in Amsterdam. No problems yet again except Greg at this point was still reminding me that the Net had got us this far and that I couldn’t even remember my passport. Cheers Greg. Flight No.2 went OK and we arrived in sunny Amsterdam.

Long time since breakfast, time for a bite to eat before we get ‘On The Road Again’. We ate our burgers (no better than the ones in Glasgow) as we checked Greg’s local train timetable (downloaded from the net) to confirm that the train we expected to get, was in fact on time. We headed from the restaurant to the ticket office and on to the platform to be met by a double decker train, this was great, (much more comfortable than the British equivalent and better maintained).

A forty minute journey followed during which we attempted to spot some of the things Holland is famous for; tulips, dykes (the water barrier type not the women in comfortable shoes, thank you!), Dutch houses, Edam cheese, clogs etc. We managed most (except the clogs and the cheese).

We arrived at Breda station to find our hotel was next door (that was a piece of luck nothing to do with the Net) {oh yes it was, I planned it this way, Greg}. This was going to be the Nets big challenge, did we manage to reserve rooms in a foreign country? As we approached reception I kept thinking, what if the receptionist says Mr who? However no problems, we checked in and made our way to our rooms for a clean up.

Back at reception I asked Greg where the Devils were performing that evening, I was a bit surprised when he said "no idea but I will find it on a website" but this was nothing to the surprise he got when the receptionist told him that not only did the Hotel not have internet access but there was no internet café in Breda. You could see the colour drain from him, no Net fix, this was not good!

After deciding to walk around Breda for a while, after all it was Saturday afternoon. we took a chance on the local tourist information centre which fortunately new all about BD being in town and where they were performing. (we also saw some clogs, only the cheese to find).

A few sunny afternoon beers later, we headed for Breda stadium to watch BD. The local football ground was a recently built affair and was fairly comfortable (more than can be said for Scotstoun Showground). About 7.30 p.m. the various Dutch Corps who were performing started up, Beatrix, Jubal and about half a dozen other unpronounceable did their shows, all to the delight of the local audience.

Next up, ‘The Blue Devils from Concord California’. This was what it was all about so we sat back and prepared to be entertained. Their show was based on the music from the films Psycho and Taxi and was technically interesting if not the most entertaining show I had ever seen.

We have very differing opinions on what direction drum corps should be going, Greg believes that the technical, precision, asymmetric shows and manoeuvres of today are the way. I prefer the style of the late 70’s and start to mid 80’s 4 piece shows with symmetrical M&M, with the great sounds from the likes of the old Spirit, Bridgemen, 27^th plus of course the shows from BD, SCV, Cavies, Madison and Garfield. The last time I saw BD live, was in ’81 and the show I had just watched was very different to the one I saw then. I know which one I preferred. I’m sure you all have your own opinions, please let us know and we will publish them.

The Olympic Retreat then followed with all the usual stuff, scores were announced with Beatrix winning (even though everyone felt Jubal were the better corps on the night and this mad mental marching band (unpronounceable name) turned out all in white with white ‘busbies’ were definitely the most entertaining, everything went at 100 miles an hour ALA Burgess Hill Scouts from the late 70’s (hands up everyone who remembers them!). The Dutch corps duly left the field leaving BD to warm up and play a static run through of their show. What a sound, amazing!!!!

I left the stadium on a high having just heard my favourite brass line ‘blow’ in all its glory to find that we had missed the last bus back to town and Breda doesn’t appear to have heard of Taxi’s. Walk Walk Walk for what felt like miles to our hotel (where is the Internet now?).

Sunday morning we were up and ready for more. Today was to be a BD clinic in Eindhoven. Train timetable at the ready, we packed and set out for the station. Another double Decker train journey later (evicted from first class, on what was an empty train for having a second class ticket) and we were in Eindhoven.

At this point I was relying on Greg to know where the BD clinic was being held but that shrug of the shoulders said it all – no idea. We asked a local taxi driver who said there was only one stadium in Eindhoven, which was PSV’s ground. We took the taxi there to find it emptier and more locked up than an empty and locked up place so back to the train station for some further deliberation. A sketch of the town on a small kiosk next to the station offered hope when Greg spotted what appeared to be a gym / football arena on the outskirts of town and with a nothing ventured -nothing gained sort of desperation, we were on another taxi trip.

Success!!! (if we ever meet the first taxi driver again he’s definitely gettinit!). We arrived just in time to watch all the Dutch corps doing a basic M&M set on the field with the BD kids, there must have been 500 ‘weans’ out there, all cold and wet and the Californian entourage didn’t seem too impressed. Inside the BD guard were doing a clinic with the Dutch guards demonstrating various techniques and manoeuvres, twirl twirl, flag flag not really my scene but the rifle line were, I must admit, well impressive. We met Angus, Dexter and Glen again and had a good chat about old times.

Next up, brass and percussion sectionals and clinic. This is what I had been waiting for. The percussion battery guys were indoors (typical, even BD kids use the old "the rain isn’t good for the drum heads etc" excuses) while the pit ensemble and the big brave brass guys braved the elements and performed outside (it was pretty miserable, I must admit). The BD brass staff took the staff of each of the Dutch corps away for 20 minutes to learn a few warm ups then the Dutch staff taught it to all there respective lines. This was followed by a combined ensemble of some 150 strong horn line in the pouring rain in a field in Eindhoven, most enjoyable!

Now it was the turn of the BD horn line to perform themselves, very professional, no playing without being told, every warm up had a name or a number and every member knew them all, no counting in, just a gentle horns up and WOW what a sound. (and that was only the warm ups). I was surprised to hear them play Tuning Tune which I thought would have been obsolete by now but this was good, it was conducted for the chord changes and not the normal counted, so everyone had to be paying attention. Next came a warm up based on snippets from Star Wars – Episode One, The Phantom Menace, this was A M A Z I N G (still my favourite piece from the whole weekend). they then went on to perform various parts of there show which was very well played but in my opinion not very exciting. After some indoor ensemble work on their show, during which Dave Gibbs (Corps Director) explained to the spectators the reasons why they were doing what they were doing etc.

Greg and I had to leave now to get the train station to the airport, where we finally found some edam cheese (few that’s a relief) to get our flight back to Luton and on to Glasgow. Everything went like clockwork (I’m beginning to like the Internet).

Our flights went smoothly and we were soon back in Blighty, tired but still excited by our experience of the 2000 Blue Devils.

I would like to thank: