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When the strong opinions come out you know you made it to the top. Welcome to the club Bluecoats! Btw, no problem with anyone's comments. Being a champion or at the top of your game comes with the territory of having people talk about you. Relish it, keep moving forward and never stop being innovative.

We're officially engaged in a discussion of the definition of the word "uniform". Please June, come soon. We need you.

If we look at the accepted definition of something that is to be uniform, worn or otherwise, then yes, they are uniforms. Calling it performance wear does not take away its uniformity.

You've obviously never seen actual cavalry. (best thing about this video is that there are light tanks and armor along with the mounted cavalry. the brits do some things right :-) )

If we're allowed to mention any corps during the DCI era, I'll toss out the Hawthorne Muchachos.

This whole discussion is a good example of why the judges judge the show on the field and not the one on the DVD. I'll take the judges result any day.

Same.

We obviously have different tastes. This year's music runs through my head all the time.

Don't forget "Scheherazade" in 2004 and 2014.

My point was that you hate the uniforms of most groups in WGI and the Bluecoats, not the activities. This is a uniform thread. Most WGI groups and the Bluecoats wear Jumpsuits, which means you hate the uniforms of most WGI groups and the Bluecoats, correct?

I stand by my prediction. Every drum corps is going to come out wearing jump suits, except Bluecoats who will be the only corps wearing a traditional uniform.

I don't agree with you at all, but I did laugh when I read your comment. Cavies 01 is one of my favorite shows (in college, every one of my coworkers at the restaurant I worked with knew the music to Four Corners because I was always whistling it) and I thoroughly loved this year's Bluecoats show. Obviously some shows/styles lump together, and fans gravitate toward different things they like.

Cadets 2005 was incredibly clean. Probably their cleanest overall effort since 1983 (with an astronomically improved drumline). As great as BD '14 was (it jumped to my #2 favorite show of all time), it's major "accomplishment" was the record score. SCV still holds the record for margin of victory (ok, 2.5 vs 2.475 is splitting hairs, but it IS the record); somehow the threepeat has eluded BD after FIVE shots at it (SCV had one shot---nobody else won twice in a row other than the 2 threepeaters); and that huge margin of victory in 2014 still couldn't get them 1st place in every subcaption (let alone a caption award sweep). '05 Cadets are the only corps to do that (with marginally interesting music). The fact that the last two winners dropped 2 full points after BD's incredible score might be a conscious effort or just that the groups have been "1991" good.

Andy, Fran, Thanks for the research and info. Lots to look forward to again!

As someone who loves taking photos at shows, uniforms that have an equal amount of light and dark in them are my favorite: they do not trick the light meters of digital cameras. This past year Louisiana Stars, Raiders, Les Stentors, Blue Knights, Cascades, Troopers, Colt Cadets, 7th Regiment, BAC, SCV, Phantom, and Bluecoats, my camera loved you. Crown, Cavies, Genesis, I loved you but according to my camera not enough contrast. Cadets, I used to always get great shots from you, until you went Bellville Black Knights on me. Now anytime I capture you under the lights it's a challenge.

just watched it a couple of days ago for the first time since finals. the most boring winner musically for me since cavies 01. not a favorite show of mine, obviously, but i think it deserved the win.

My guess is that BD will get entirely new tops...they've made so many changes on recent years there's not a lot of the original left. 'Course, I said that LAST year.... Cadets?? Same basic design....neon green just to #### EVERYONE off!

At the end of the day, it's a performance activity. While we grade on excellence, performance has to remember its original goal, which is to entertain. I watch a lot of Cirque shows. Drum corps has made my eye very keen to lack of uniformity, and there's a ton of that in Cirque. That said, even if my eye catches when the three guys performing backflips off bungee cords were a few inches out of alignment from each other, my brain still registers how awesome this is. "How awesome this is" must be the crux, and that's why entertaining is and should be the thing that pushes corps into champion status.

Amazing to think how many people think Clean = Winning. If that were the case, corps would do just enough to win, rather than push the envelope. There are a ton of shows that could have won based on being "cleaner", but didn't because their product wasn't as innovative as the winner. Have to remember that the top and bottom boxes on the sheets are basically the "what are you doing" and "how are you doing it". 1984 Cadets over BD 1985 Cadets over SCV and BD 1988 Scouts over BD (who ended up third) 1990 Cadets over Cavaliers 1998 Cadets over SCV 1999 SCV...Very dirty but way cool 2001 Cavaliers over BD and Cadets 2005 Cadets over Cavaliers 2008 PR over BD 2016 Bluecoats over BD All of those shows had more visual or musical "dirt" than the runner up, but there is NO way I would take any of those titles away from the corps who won.

Yeah. Just like 88 Scouts.

A bit long to actually stand alone as a ballad, but the first 2:20 could make a really powerful opener, with the rest of the piece being a ballad or even a closer.

I wondered if anyone would try do do more of Enigma. I love Elgar.

I liked the early DCI judge uniforms.... the baseball caps the judges wore all seemed to be three sizes too big. LOL.

It's a balance of achievement weighted against the content. You all are counting ticks thinking that the content for all the groups is the same and it isn't. The bloo members were marching up walls while doing body and keeping formations. That's a whole energy and technique that no one has explored, ever. Their movement vocab was much denser than other groups. It isn't a bunch of keep the right hand on the horns and use the other three limbs. They actually put their instruments down and dance. They started their show with the drum line dancing with no drums on. No one else took their drums off and asked their drummers to dance. Exposure, look at the uniform. The opening dance block? No one was as exposed as that. They actually had to be performers who used their faces. Every other drum corps hid their faces under a big hat. That's a whole responsibility that no one else had. Bloo was hauling around the field. They jazz ran a lot. Their drill isn't all on, 2 off and splitting like most other groups have been moving towards. Thanks Pyware... I mean Obama! I really mean pyware. Their content was denser and when you weight that against their achievement they did a great job. They had blemishes but they were good enough visually to get them in a winning position and they did. Looking forward to 2017.

Sloppy as hell, visually. Inventive and fun as hell in every other way. Should have won, did win.

Ok

This really should have been the 4th place show. While it is a GE monster, it is so incredibly dirty visually and musically. I really couldn't get over that fact during the season, and I actually find myself enjoying the show more now, though my thoughts on where it should have placed haven't changed. I actually just just listened to the lossless audio yesterday for the first time. There is a lot there that I had never heard before, and it really drove home how little the brass and percussion actually play during the show. This show is driven by the synthesizer, and it was jarring to hear it so clearly defined in the lossless audio.

15 year old Son is currently marching Shadow from Oregon WI 2017 will be his second season. His older brother showed interest in Colt cadets but was not ready in maturity and then lost interest. I marched in the 70's and 80's in Pages of the Wausau Story, Wausau Story, and St. Croix Rivermen.

OK... would that be "She says she is just not cut out to be in the sun all day".... or "in the Sun all day"???

In 1992 they nearly ditched the whole uniform right down to suspenders and open shirts for the entirety of the closer.