DCI 2014 Tour Premiere (Akron, OH)

[Caviecub]

Review of the 2014 Drum Corps Preview show in theaters, replaying the 6/21 show in Akron, OH. I depend on the theater shows as I can't make it to many live shows anymore.

--Boston Crusaders had slick blood red/black gradient uniforms. It matched the mood of their "Animal Farm" show. I can kinda see where they were going with the concept. But I didn't care for the masks, and there was a bit too much "Old McDonald" in it. They placed last.

--Madison is all (mostly) white this year, still with a military look. I enjoyed their Kenton/Ellis music - they gave me my first goosebumps of the night. Unfortunately, I cannot remember much of them. But I do know it was cool, and I really want to see them again. 6th of 7.

--I'm having a bit of an identity crisis. My beloved Cavaliers have really not grabbed me the past few seasons. And it appears this year is the same. Earlier this this year they announced their show would be titled "Immortal". I cringed, and hoped 'please Cavies, please don't be doing a vampire show- please make it any other kind of immortal in any other way than with vampires.' Unfortunately, they brought a vampire show. It's 3-4 years behind the period when people were already *over* vampires - let alone when vamps were the rage. I could do without as much theatrical facial expressions and evil grimaces. Personal preference, I suppose. I tried hard to ignore any vampy stuff and keep focused on drill or brass or percussion. They had a few good things going... An interesting visual of stealing souls by pulling black silks out of the corps members chests. A crazy slick keyboard set with marimbas pulled out on the field. Suh-WEET looking drums. They finished in 5th of 7, but they took high percussion. I've always been a fan of the Cavie's kick-### percussion.

--Phantom placed in the middle of the pack. Performing Swan Lake - but a bit of a darker side. They started in their classy black and white smooth-as-french-silk-pie look. They later went all-angry black. Kinda like their '87 White Ballet show meets Faust.

--Cadets won the night. They performed "Lincoln Portrait" and a couple other Aaron Copland pieces. They can do no wrong with Copland! Lincoln Portrait is not an easily accessible piece to the uninitiated. It has narration throughout it as it saunters through musical... um, 'portraits' of Lincoln's life. The Cadets brought that narration into their show while adding passages from other influential presidents. LP can be really powerful if you have a great narrator. It choked me up when I performed it in a college concert. And I completely squeeed for all the other Copland music too - Appalachian Spring, Symph #3, and Tender Land. They were so clean, it seemed like I was seeing an Allentown show instead of a first week. But that's the norm for the Cadets.

--Carolina Crown - the defending 2013 world champs, put on another out of this world show... entitled "Out of this World". A very spacey theme that was really fun for the audience. Had trampolines for some gravity tricks- they didn't add too much to the show tonight, but I'm sure they'll fill that in before Finals. They had a percussion set banging on steel car mufflers and a few other chunks of 'huh-never-would-have-thought-to-percuss-on-that' steel. Again, they were so clean they looked weeks ahead of everybody. They placed 2nd.

--The corps that blew me away was the 3rd place Bluecoats from Canton, OH (BLOOOOOOOOO!!!). Their show is called "Tilt". (See how I tilted the word 'tilt'? I'm so cool.) Their percussion tied for 1st place with the Cavaliers. They did some phenomenal acts of tilting performers on large triangular wedge pieces that they would stand on at different angles, balancing and using them as giant levers. They even tilted the field- with a big orange rectangle covering the entire playing field, but skewed about 5 degrees. Nice eye candy. Toward the end, the brass did a mind-bending full-volume chord pitch slide tilt thing that is really, really difficult to put into words, as you can see by the words I just used that don't really help. Unfortunately, no one can be- told what "Tilt" is. You have to see it for yourself. (Goosebumps!) They were my favorite corps of the night. I MUST see this live and from up high somewhere this season! Love to see them in the top 5 in Indy.

I apologize for not being able to remember more of the shows. This is far more due to my bad memory than to any lack of memorable material. They were all great!