You have heard a marching band. This is not that.
The typical Saturday could use some volume, and a stadium full of brass tends to deliver. Drum Corps International, the circuit that calls itself marching music’s major league, hauls its summer tour back to the Rose Bowl on Saturday — its first Pasadena stop since last July. Twelve corps come along.
Six Open Class groups take the field first at 5:35 p.m. After intermission come the World Class heavyweights: Bluecoats, Santa Clara Vanguard, and Blue Devils. City of Industry’s Pacific Crest, Southern California’s only World Class corps and a nonprofit that reaches some 3,900 students a year, co-produces the night and marches it too. Expect a field of horns and drumlines, six full parking lots, and roughly 11,500 fans there to watch young musicians go for broke.
The good news for anyone squinting at a $75 seat: there’s a cheaper way in. Pacific Crest arranged outreach tickets as low as $25 — plus a $12 per-order handling fee — with Riverside County Supervisor Yxtian Gutierrez’s office as presenting sponsor. This is not the stadium’s first brush with a drumline, either; the Rose Bowl hosted the 2007 DCI World Championships and has welcomed the Indianapolis-based circuit off and on ever since. Gates open at 4:15 p.m., percussion practice warms up early on Area H, and scores drop at 9:45 p.m.
Grab a lawn’s worth of friends and go feel your sternum rattle.
Rose Bowl, 1001 Rose Bowl Dr., Pasadena. Saturday; gates open 4:15 p.m., first corps 5:35 p.m. Tickets $51–$75, outreach seats from $25, through the DCI Box Office and Ticketmaster.
