Pete Sapadin I&E Snare solo from 1990

This was Pete’s last year as a Blue Devil. The next year, he aged out with the Cadets. Fun fact, Cadets did not allow their members to participate in I&E, so he was unable to get “revenge” the next season as an age-out. Pete wound up in 4th place with this performance. His good friend and fellow Blue Devil Snare drummer, Kevin Murphy, squeaked by him by one tenth. They used to work on their solos together and help each other.

Fun fact, shorty after getting dropped off at the venue in Buffalo NY, Pete’s top head broke. He had lugged around a premier Scottish snare drum for his solo, and had a tendura head on it. The tendura head was like a modern kevlar head, but it had no coating on the top, so it had a bouncier feel and dryer sound. The equipment truck and to park far away from the venue, and he had no extra heads with him, thinking that the truck would have been near by. A friend from another corps let him use his drum head after he was done with his solo, and Pete was trying to get it off, and put it on his own drum when the timing people came over to say, you’re on!

Pete borrowed Kevin Murphy’s drum for his performance, and played his I&E solo with no warmup.