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Hung out with Brasso and his friend at camp today and the staff has definitely written a book to be considered a medal contender. Strong Boston Strong.

The music stands on its own. Unique because I’ve never heard it played by any other corps ever. The brass has a quality that is Similar to Cadets 2015 but with a Crown big full sound. Percussion is off the chain with a lot of ensemble difficulty and the front ensemble is amazing. Really it’s all medal quality. Have to see where it goes from here.

I'm hoping for much, MUCH better year than 2017, 2016, and 2015 combined. I wish they would become competitive again. But time will tell.

May a strong visual tie everything together.

They’ve definitely stepped up their game. Powerful.

Their new Independent World guard made their competitive premier today at WGI Indianapolis, a strong 3rd in prelims behind two contenders. . Super fun show, just like anything I expect out of that organization. They should have a great inaugural season.

We were there for ensemble. Emotional and powerful. Captures you from the very beginning and keeps coming at you.

quality is quality with or without males. There were years with the males it wasn't a top guard and having males might have been part of the reason they went all female to begin with. especially that last year of co-ed

When you are in charge, you are in charge. You get credit for the successes. You take blame for the failures. And that's the way it should be. To blame your problems on your staff is small. It's what politicians do. Jeff Ream is right. Everybody knows who is in charge. That's where the buck stops.

What you quoted was not me

I want to thank the Boston Crusaders for allowing us to be there today. It was a pleasure. Such a wealth of talent is a joy to witness.

Oh wow I forgot like 3 or 4 shows.....l edited those in. And CRAP I forgot another one in the 2007 Phantom Regiment.......####. That was a journey for me last summer. I don't usually do a flip on a show like that but something just finally clicked. I think I had convinced myself so much I wasn't going to like it live that it took well over half the season to come around.

there's enough negative energy in the world that ideally drum corps replaces...here's hoping for a retooled , kick ###, 1982 like year , where the next chapter of the Cadets legacy again elevates the activity..peace

saw my first at 3 weeks old in 1969

How about a nice game of Chess?

Guess now I have to. I wonder who my favorite corps is right now. LOL This list could change pretty much every hour, I have a lot of recent shows on there, and that's more due to the fact they're the shows I've followed, watched develop, and saw live. They're the shows I connect with, I am not ignorant of the great history of the activity I promise, just my generation I guess. I threw this together pretty quickly too so I'm almost sure I'm forgetting someone very important here. After the top two you could probably shuffle them and I wouldn't care about the order. 2015 Bluecoats on first viewing is probably the most shell shocked a show has ever left me, and that's why I'll put it on top. It felt like I was watching and listening to something I had never seen before. 2013 sewed the seeds, 2014 asserted themselves, and 2016 perfected what they've done as of late but IMO 2015 is the show that really made them who they currently are in terms of how they approach sound. Love all the music, the two minutes before the ballad are probably my favorite two minutes of drum corps ever and the whole show is just absolutely electric when I watch it. 2010 Blue Stars is the first good drum corps I saw in competition and was honestly a checklist of everything I love in a show; great and emotionally captivating theme, incredibly aggressive music, dark and loud brass, amazing percussion, and a pretty exhausting to watch visual program. This show is why I'm excited to see what they do every year. 2014 Bluecoats of course had the pitch bend but it was so much more than that to me. After some pretty complex shows being near the top it was refreshing to see a very simple concept executed so masterfully on so many levels in a way that was incredibly appealing. Amazing ballad that has gotten beaten to death in recent years, but back then it was so refreshing to hear someone just let a piece of music be what it is again and let the show breathe. And yes the ending is amazing. 2016 Bluecoats was a culmination of elements performed at a level that I had never seen before. Seeing those uniforms run out from behind the prop at the tour premier the first time was INCREDIBLY shocking, but holy hell it was exciting. The usage and integration level of the props was absolutely masterful, and they packaged it all with an incredibly unrelenting and just absolutely bombastic musical program that never ever ever let up in any regard. This show was like a rock concert in Denton for me, it was overwhelming in the absolute best of ways. It might be my "least" favorite of their recent medal run but it is still a show I absolutely adore. 1993 Star of Indiana is a cliche, but just getting rid of all the reasons people argue it's legendary I just love what it is. I love how they used space as well as silence and let the brass have incredibly variety in style and volume. The percussion is fantastic as a supporting voice and amazing and sparingly featured. The guard is pretty starkly simple but adds so much. And of course the closer is just straight up run and gun awesomeness. 2017 Boston Crusaders I had the pleasure of seeing twice and that's easily the most fun I've had seeing a show live. They executed this thing about as well as they could have, they truly maxed it out. Incredibly well told story, fantastic staging, incredible clarity in the music package, and incredible performances from all sections catapulted this one pretty high on my list pretty fast. I lept on my feet soooooo fast when I saw this show at the end, it was just pure energy. 2014 Blue Knights is among the small list of shows that made me shed a tear, and where I feel like voice overs were absolutely integral and made a show just work on all levels. What an incredibly beautiful, well told, and heart wrenching story they wove on the field that year.......IMO perfectly capturing what that moment before you pass is like when your life flashes before your eyes. At that time this was their strongest effort in quite awhile and it was just an absolute treat to watch. Seeing that show in Denver is a highlight of my live shows thus far for sure. 2017 Blue Devils started off as a show I did not like. At all. In any way shape or form. And then the Atlanta week happened where they really started to refine and add small details that brought it together into a show I have just fallen head over heals for. As a tribute to who they were, are, and will become it was just masterfully put together and really pulled at my heart during finals week. This show has probably turned me into a full fledged Blue Devils fan. 2015 Blue Knights IMO is the freshest musical program to grace the field as of late, they threw any kind of formulas or ways of doing things completely out the window and created a seamless, ethereal, and just stunning show. This is also when Mike Jackson's absolutely surreal percussion writing really took its footing and I fell in love with his and that teams work. And their usage of color........just stunning. 2010 Bluecoats is what really made me fall in love with them after they gave me my first live drum corps experience in 2009. I love shows that are dark and angry sounding and are all up in your face for twelve minutes. This show is that to a T. I do realize the synth bass gets nasty in this one but in a time when everyone was still figuring out the electronics menace they were hardly the only ones. 2011 The Academy is another show that was like a checklist for my personal enjoyment. Above all else I freaking love listening to this show. Every part of the show is incredibly exciting to listen to, and their brass and ESPECIALLY percussion were so hot that year. Loved the Hinshaw drill and the bonkers color usage in the guard as well. This is just straight up good drum corps. 1996 Phantom Regiment easily has one of my all time favorite openers in the 4th Ballet Suite, and the climax with the lone guard member spinning that oh so simple red silk sends chills down my spine every time. The whole show is just emotionally satisfying and brings to life the music of a composer whose life was filled with so much turmoil and aggression in Russia during that time. I think they captured the pure essence of what Shostakovitch is. 2016 The Academy is about the most fun I've had following a corps journey through a season. When I saw this show preseason on youtube I knew it would be special, but I had no idea it was going to end the way it did. The whole of finals night watching that online was so so so special, I can't imagine what that was like live making history. But above all that......what a show. Simple and masterfully executed storyline, amazing musical and visual moments throughout, their best performances ever in pretty much every caption and subcaption, and that closer.......it was a fairytale season for them. 2014 Blue Devils is a show that works on so many levels, it's a simple film show if you want to stop there but it's also so much more if you keep on digging. The ballad and closer blow me away every time I watch this one, and their level of performance that year was just never going to be caught. It was awe inducing to watch them that season. 1998 Glassmen has always been a show I loved for the simple fact it's just fantastic music and drill performed amazingly well. I love Borodin, I LOVE their percussion that year, and the Jamey Thompson visual program is just a treat to watch. Not much else to say than it's just the essence of what I like about drum corps. Honorable mention to the 1997 and 2016 Santa Clara Vanguard.

Back on topic ... Cadets enter 2018 off an odd 2017 year characterized by a dearth of veterans and substantial turnover in senior staff. A year ago they were a young corps with a staff that had never worked together. Yet the corps mostly held its own in a 2017 summer in which the competition was particularly good and despite the unforeseen consequences imposed by the license holder on Cadets musical options. The members gave 2017 a strong thumbs up for satisfaction, which has translated into a high percentage of vets returning for another year at Cadets in 2018. Last year's senior staff returns as well, this time unencumbered by the restrictions of the Bernstein family. All told, things are looking a lot brighter this spring than they did a year ago. HH

If anyone is going to change the trajectory, Brad Toth and his brass staff will do it. He can do great things with a brass line and may just breathe the life in that Phantom needs. Looking forward to watching what they do this season!

For 2018, I want all kids to have a safe, and rewarding summer.

Not well in Allentown? By what standard? Principal staff return. Members return at a very high rate. I know this board would rather that it weren't true, that all the DCP complaints about the 2017 show would manifest in mass defections from Allentown. Not happening. Not so bad there. HH

Is this a" Cadets 2018 " thread discussion, or some previous year's Cadets thread for venting and discussion ? Methinks its become the latter of late with lots of complaints and finger pointings about recent Cadets underperformances. Any chance this thread can be put back to a more forward looking discussion of " The Cadets 2018", or is this perhaps asking for too much here on this thread ?

I'm not going to re-litigate this, but anyone who thinks that the staff people who went to BAC were motivated only by money are simply whistling past the graveyard. It is disingenuous to suggest that all is well in Allentown. And for the record, the design team at Boston who masterminded the 2017 production will confirm the fact that the BAC Exec Director didn't change a note, alter a drill move, or add a single prop to the show. He hired a team and let them do what they know how to do. Interesting concept.....

omg

If that is what you want to take from it, so be it. I consider it sub-par for Cadets standards so if you don't like that, I can't help your feelings. I stand by what I said 100% regardless of whether or not you like it.

Looks like you guys have been working out over the Winter in order to fit on one GQ cover.

Look forward to seeing You and Hubby there too. I'm driving 3, maybe 4 of us. We'll be real easy to identify, Terri. Just look for 3 or 4 outstandingly handsome guys walking together that look like they could be on the cover of GQ,, and that'll more than likely be us.

See ya Sunday. We’ll be the suntanned ones.

Watchmen enters into the 2018 season in their fifth year of competition, and they are stronger than ever. Starting as a brass ensemble in 2013, Watchmen has grown into a full size open class corps and will be touring this year in California, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. This year’s production is entitled “Altered”, where they will test your altered states. The original composition by Harry Hutchins and Paul Rendon comes in four movements and will evoke images of psychological manipulation, covert intelligence, and mind control. Will chaos ensue? Let’s find out… http://www.watchmenartsassociation.org/2108-production/

Yes...timpani making a comeback with Bloo in 2018! It's been a while :-)

I agree with a lot of your critique of Bluecoats. The only exception would be the criticism that Jagged Line wasn't a big enough move from Down Side Up, only that Blue Devils have relied on the exact same design concepts for almost a decade and it hasn't seemed to impact their scores. When I first saw Jagged Line, my main concern was how they would be able to execute a medalist show with a massive stage plunked down the middle of the field. In the end, they did as good a job making it an asset as possible but it was definitely a liability as well. The biggest issue was the fact that you had to go single file from field left to field right. It dictated too much of the drill the end. The biggest miss of the show was the ballad. It was a valiant design effort and concept that just never worked as well as it needed to. They took a fourth of the show up to execute an idea that never really was worth the investment. Purely from a design concept standpoint, and this is just me, it was a conceptual mismatch to do a Fosse show visually with ultra modern music. If you are going to do Fosse, do it 100%.

This discussion is remarkably civil, given it's premise. Normally it would have devolved into name-calling and blame-assigning by now. This is a good sign. John Donovan, (DCP's chief exec) asked me some time ago to contribute content on this very subject in an effort to foster a dialog between drum corps generations, so we developed these features: http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/category/podcasts/off-the-record/ http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/category/commentary/inside-the-arc/ Both focus on the history and trends of the drum corps experience. We are hopeful the community finds them both entertaining and thought-provoking. The current performers, fans and drum corps elders likely want the same thing: mutual respect. Knowing the history will promote that. In Beyonce's CD collection you will find several tracks of Billie Holiday. Frank Dorritie (St. Catherine's Queensmen '61,'62/Sunrisers '63-'73...etc.)