truman

I genuinely laughed at this-honestly-props man! I guess I have some work to do to emulate humility and respect with my posts. Just proves how hard that can be…hehe

And my point is that there has been a Boston and Bluecoats in every decade. Why do you think that Cadets or Star or Cavaliers or SCV lost age outs to BD?

It would be silly to say that competitive success doesn’t recruit talent, but to claim that isn’t the case for the corps I mentioned is dismissing logiic. Trying to frame Boston and Bloo’s current talent pool as something new is not factual.

I guess the Cadets of the 80’s, Star in the 90’s, Cavaliers in the 2000’s, Crown and Bloo in the 2010’s, and SCV throughout it all might take exception to you claiming BD has had stacked talent for “many many years until recently”.

Ok…no The only thing that BD has done for “literally decades”, all 5 of them, is dominate the competitive aspect of DCI. It’s not even close for second. Managing culture around such superiority has not been easy, but I can tell you first hand that the organization has been very committed and extremely successful in meeting that challenge. Talent and success naturally feed ego. There are staff throughout the activity, especially designers, that have ego’s that are far from good examples of what we are supposed to be about. The same goes for some adjudicators. In all my personal interactions and observations of the Blue Devils in every decade, I have marveled at how they have managed their success. There have been a lot of personal interactions, so if you need examples, it will be a long read. Humility and respect are the overwhelming characteristics that I have witnessed. Rarely has that not been the case, and I certainly never would say that they have spent “literally decades” “inviting” ill will upon themselves. I have heard them all, starting with the 70’s…”The California corps have a big advantage because they can start practicing outside in the winter and the northeast corps can’t do that.” “They get the best talent”, “They just design for judges and not for fans”, “They don’t do drill, they just scatter and pose”, “I just don’t enjoy their style”, and blah blah blah. The corps challenging them have come and gone. The notion that their success is coming to a close is not new, and it hasn’t been accurate for 50 years. Meanwhile, The Blue Devils care only of their own self assessment, that which they control, and measure themselves with more scrutiny and standard than anyone else ever can. They have goals that go far beyond competitive success. This decade’s flavor of the month groups would do well to emulate that standard, and I am hoping they can.

Can’t seem to find this podcast? Any chance you could provide a link?

I felt last night was as good an overall performance as I had seen this year. The delay to start had to be somewhat disruptive, still not sure all was “right” electronically when they started? Perhaps it was just my Flo feed, but I felt the opening trio was a little hot, and so was the quartet at the end of the ballad? Hopefully tonight they have another best run. Seems like the final rep of this show and season has come upon us so quickly. Do it up Devils!

I have seen the sheets and you are right on. And I get the “international” thing, just seems like if we are making instrumentation rules concessions to allow for “foreign” groups to participate in the competition, is making age concessions that much different? Theoretically an International could medal at finals if they scored in the top 3? Or is it like getting into semis, if they get the highest score they can’t knock anyone out of a top 3 spot?

It would be even more messy if an international group scored high enough to be a 13th performer on Saturday night. No harm-no foul I guess

They have different sheets for sure.

So theoretically, Reading could compete in quarters and semis since their “classification” allows all age?

Can someone help me with how Stampede can be scored on the same sheets, and ranked/rated, when they are outside of the rules relating to instrumentation?

I keep waiting for BD to “pop” one…Allentown and Canton were “close”, last night, not so much? I hope tonight they make a statement that they can follow up on tomorrow night. Wherever that lands them would be fine by me.

I believe the simplest answer to your post’s question is yes, they absolutely do. Perhaps consider that them choosing the subject matter was the exact opposite of insensitively just looking for “set dressing”. Maybe they are attempting to ask their audience the very question that you pose. i will always be thankful for art or entertainment that reminds us of the tragedies of war. We seem to be in a time when those lessons are being suppressed in favor of the delusional glorification of power and aggression.