Blue Knights Logo 2004 Blue Knights | "A Knight's Tale"

10th Place, 87.600

After narrowly missing a finalist spot with a 13th-place finish at the 2003 DCI World Championships in Orlando, the Blue Knights powered back into the big show in 2004 with “A Knight’s Tale.”

Fueled by the cheers of a hometown crowd as the DCI Finals returned to Mile High in Denver for the first time since 1978, Blue Knights improved three positions year over year to finish the season in 10th place.

The corps wore a uniform in 2004 that it had debuted four years earlier. Black pants and shoes complemented a black and blue top divided on the front by a triangular white band stretching from right shoulder to left hip. Black gauntlets with white detailing and silver buttons in addition to black shakos with silver hardware completed the look.

The color guard costuming took its inspiration from medieval knights, particularly a gambeson, which is a type of quilted under armor. Blue Knights’ take, however, was modernized, more akin to a typical fencing uniform, featuring white pants and a white top that had one sleeveless arm. Detailing on the front of the ensemble included four black buckles from neck to hip on the left side and a rendition of the corps’ triangular “dots” logo in blue on the right.

2004 Blue Knights
2004 Blue Knights

 

Pre-season publicity materials billed “A Knight’s Tale” as “conveying the sense of wonder in the imagination of children when they conjure up adventures of the knights of yore. Each such story must begin with a dramatic flourish.”

After a subdued opening played to the backfield, the Blue Knights provided this flourish with the fanfare from “Trittico for Brass Band” by concert band composer James Curnow.

In a shield-like formation centered on the 50-yard line, the corps played the opening surrounded by the 30-member color guard spinning bright-yellow flags. According to DCI.org columnist Michael Boo, “The sheer volume of the searing opening grand gesture is enough to rattle the brain cells.”

Bookending “A Knight’s Tale” with pieces familiar to the Denver corps, “Trittico” had a long and successful history serving as the primary repertoire in the ensemble’s 1994 and 1999 productions. In both of those years the corps managed to finish in seventh place, Blue Knights’ highest finishes ever to that point in time.

Three selections in the middle of the production came from percussion arranger Michael Nevin. Making his name with the highly-successful Blue Knights percussion ensemble, Nevin composed and arranged for the indoor group during its WGI World Championship-winning seasons of 1999, 2000 and 2003. Interestingly on the Drum Corps International stage, Nevin also provided the front ensemble arrangements for the Blue Devils’ silver medal-winning production in 2004.

Playing up his experience writing music for front ensemble percussion sections, Nevin’s “Journey” and “Chase” pieces in “A Knight’s Tale” were said to be written as “musical travelogues through rich melodic themes that are punctuated by colorful outbursts from the pit.”

2004 Blue Knights - "A Knight's Tale"

Flashing back to the 2004 Blue Knights Drum & Bugle Corps at Mile High 🏔 #DCI2019 returns to Denver this Saturday! 🏟 bit.ly/DEN19Tix 🖥 bit.ly/Flo19Denver

Posted by Drum Corps International on Friday, July 12, 2019

 

Another Nevin piece, “Battle,” allowed the drum line to take center stage, in a solo that featured members of the front ensemble laying down the beat with seven field floor toms that were spread between the 40-yard lines. Color guard members provided a visual accompaniment as they paired off against each other in a choreographed fight with wooden staffs that were decoratively wrapped with sections of reflective tape.

More than eight minutes into the production, the Blue Knights finally slowed things down transitioning to “I Go On” from Leonard Bernstein’s musical theatre work, “Mass.” Like “Trittico” this ballad was another work familiar to the corps, performed as part of its 1990 Bernstein-centric show.

Big, bold and up-tempo, Blue Knights’ closing piece offered a curtain call of sorts, reprising melodies and rhythmic motifs from earlier movements.

Finals night flip

BLUE KNIGHTS VS CROSSMEN
Crossmen had a near season-long advantage over the Blue Knights until the final night of the season.

 

In seven head-to-head meetings on the 2004 DCI Tour prior to the World Championships, Crossmen finished ahead of the Blue Knights in all but two of them. This included three important lead-up events to the Quarterfinals in Denver, where the Crossmen continued the streak scoring 0.775 points ahead of the Denver corps on the first night of championship competition.

Learn more about the 2004 Crossmen

The Blue Knights, however, began to chip away at that lead immediately, cutting the gap to just 0.025 points the next day in the Semifinals competition though still in favor of the Crossmen.

On the scoresheets on the final night of the season, the two corps were dead even in the general effect caption with the Crossmen holding a 0.125-point advantage in total music thanks to a strong ninth-place finish in music ensemble.

It was the Denver corps’ three tenths advantage in the visual caption — aided by an almost one-point advantage in color guard — that accounted for Blue Knights slipping into 10th place with a 0.175-point advantage.

After missing out on a Finals night bid in 2003, Blue Knights’ return in 2004 marked the beginning of a streak of top-12 finishes that still stands today.

2004 DCI World Championship Finals awards ceremony