Mouthpiece1234

The Cadets. I love all 4 that they've had. But definitely the Garfield G, which is a frequenter on the souvie material to this day.

There was one absolutely haunting part of this show... the beginning of the closer with the HNC, Garfield G, CB, and 75. It was an absolutely amazing moment both musically and visually. What an absolute treat! Never had I seen and heard a backfield horn line moment like this. An amazing marriage of music and visual design. What a soft tear jerking moment. There have been several moments that bring amazement, chills, intensity, darkness. But I've never seen a moment that captured the audience with shear nostalgia; alumni or not. Thank you Holy Name!

I just don't want to see hornlines not march. There really is too much hiding behind props, standing still, sitting down (yeah that's a callout), posing, and free form this year. Just really way too much this year. It started in the early 2000s and it's really getting out of hand in my opinion. Most of the top 6 are extremely guilty of this. For me difficulty both technical and on physical endurance of a marcher is an effect for me and I'm certainly not alone on this thought. Corps have 100 days to max it out. Write something effective yet clearly hard and rehearse it until it's clean. There's got to be less "wow that's cool" and more of "wow look at what they're doing".

They struggled because of the work and the tricky flags and constant rewrites. Vets who marched 2005 said it was an absurd book in the beginning of the season.

The testament of the difficulty of his drill comes from the shear fact that the corps is playing extremely loud while marching.

Well this year it was on purpose with the recycling to celebrate the Corps' history. Backwards Z-pull, Rotating Block, HNC, Garfield G, the same way the Company Front formed in 1984, the Big X from 2007, the star from 2005/06, the Hour Glass, and the Meshing Company Front

I was facebook surfing and saw a posted video of Holy Name's 2009 Semifinals Performance and I was utterly amazed with the drill design. I'm sure all you DCI veterans have definitely heard The Cadets, Star of Indiana, Santa Clara Vanguard and The Cavaliers to be the leaders of visual innovation in the activity. However I felt that after 2007, The Cadets have been particularly leading another surge of visual amazement: shear elegance yet viciously aggressive with some extreme demand. After watching all of 2007, the end of 2008, and top to bottom of 2009: I feel as though the Cadets maybe redefining visual difficulty as an effect. What do you all think?

You and your politics.

2007 Cadets

Shame on all of you. You, member, staff, design team, all alike very well know that Cadets show is never set in stone and is subject to drastic alterations up to their first performance.

1999 Blue Devils 2003 Blue Devils 2006 Blue Devils 1999 Santa Clara Vanguard 1989 Santa Clara Vanguard 2000 The Cadets 2005 The Cadets 2007 The Cadets 2008 The Cadets Vesuvius! :devil: 1996 Phantom Regiment 2003 Phantom Regiment 2006 Phantom Regiment

There is a massive similarity between 2008 Phantom Regiment and 2006 Phantom Regiment. 2008 Phantom is almost a splice of Faust... so I don't see any originality there. One could also argue that 2006 Phantom Regiment came from 2004 Scheherazade and ideas used in 2005 Cadets. As charming as 2008 Phantom was, I don't think it revolutionized anything. Seems like the design team just used the Faust template because they knew it worked. 2008 Cadets, was revolutionary, but most likely did not revolutionize the future. Though it used characters, the primary goal was not to show actions of a character. Rather, it was create a feeling. Happiness. Now, that is very very hard and incredibly broad to do on a field. Similarities between 08 and 06 Regiment... 1) Pre-show Setup Time used to Generate the Environment and Characters 2) Colorguard is dressed in uniforms to accentuate the environment 3) Specific Characters key for visually centric cues 4) An Angry Classical Opener showing the unhappy environment created by the evil characters 5) Opener uses the Mellophone wail to end abruptly 6) Ballad with the "Love" theme going on 7) Ballad is transitioned to a dark piece by the evil character 8) One Production showing Good vs. Evil with a Characters' Death 9) Final Production uses a majestic ending with half-time triple forte where Evil is destroyed

2008 just because of that closer. Wow. The last 2 minutes was definitely the most intense demand out of the top 12. Standing O

The 2007 Cadets were over 100 decibels. Brass rehearsals used a decibel meter everyday to make sure the volumes were at right levels, especially for hits.

China is certainly not thaaaaat that poor, and people aren't all striving now. There are developed areas like there are developed areas in other countries and run of the mill places the same. One thing is certain, there is a population. Going there annually, I've seen run down towns with almost every person with high-tech cell phones. I do believe it's possible in areas like Beijing, Nanjing, Karamay, Shanghai etc... that Drum Corps would be a respectable activity to join. Most high schools have coreographed military-like colorguard practices and exhibitions. Drum Corps wouldn't be a stretch for some of those kids.