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EntertainmentTrumpsAll

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  • Your Drum Corps Experience
    Auditioned, never made a corps
  • Your Favorite Corps
    Cavaliers
  • Your Favorite All Time Corps Performance (Any)
    Cavaliers 2004
  • Your Favorite Drum Corps Season
    2008 or 2011

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  1. I guess we will have to agree to disagree then. I don't want to make broad generalizations but I saw one, maybe two truly great uses of props in the entirety of the top 12 this year. I know enjoyment of Drum Corps is subjective but I heavily disagree with you on "things evolve or they die". DCI was never dying and has been going on for many many years. The prop era only really started picking up steam since 2012. Every year more props get added and less marching takes place. And as I said in my opening post, I don't get to see these shows nearly as much as I would like to, but in what ways were there "plenty of high velocity and challenging drill"?? I saw almost none. :(
  2. Hello! With the season now over, I wanted to have a discussion on where Drum Corps is and where the activity is going. I want to maintain a positive attitude but I also want to point out some things that have truly rubbed me the wrong way the past few years and see if I am alone in this, or if others here feel the same way. I live in Arizona and don’t have access to many shows in my immediate vicinity, mainly just the Drums Across the Desert. I also regularly attend the DCI Big Loud and Live events each year, so my view of DCI and Drum Corps in general is limited to only a few events a year, but I have been vigorously following the activity since the early 2000’s. I mean no disrespect to any of the amazing marching members or volunteers or all of the incredible people it takes to make a DCI season happen, but this 2018 season had to be my least favorite season of DCI that I have ever seen. There was such a colossal use of props and staging that I sat there in my seat and consistently was taken out of the performances because there seemed to be so little actual marching going on. My father has been a huge DCI fan for years and years and he was chuckling to himself at how little corps were actually playing while marching. I don’t want to have this turn into a hate post, because I do love this activity so much, but I walked away from Drums Across the Desert quite disappointed and that feeling didn’t leave me after walking out of the theater either. I feel that the activity as a whole needs to take some big steps toward cutting down on a few things – 1. Electronic use – Not every solo needs to be mic’ed and pre-recorded audio needs to be kept to a minimum. I don’t have as much problem with microphone usage on live audio, but pre-recorded stuff being played out of speakers is getting out of hand. 2. Amount of prop use – The sheer amount of props on the field per corps was insane this year. I don’t blame the corps for not moving (see: Marching) as much due to the ridiculous amount of props, but do we really need to have so much? Half of the time it looked more like a stage than a football field. 3. Dance – There have been some great uses of dance and movement in the past (Cavaliers 2002 – Fight Club comes to mind) but it has gotten to the point where the marching members are dancing around more than they are marching. I have nothing against dance as a visual art form, but its use should be fairly restricted in drum corps. Am I alone here? I was very disheartened leaving the theater Thursday night. My father even said he didn’t know if he wanted to come back next year because we didn’t enjoy ourselves. I feel all of the above issues I have mentioned seem to only be getting worse each year. Thanks!
  3. Interesting. I think based on the number of votes that 1980's finals night is considered the best. I haven't checked out much DCI pre 1995(ish) I'll have to see if I can go back and view some of those shows. Any performances in particular that stood out? I know several of you have said "top-to-bottom" but are there any favorites in that particular year?
  4. Hello everyone, I wanted to help pass some time between now wand when the season starts up next month by asking a question I haven't seen posed in a long time. (I may have missed a thread about it though, I stalk these forums quite frequently but don't comment nearly as much as I should) My question is, what is your favorite DCI year? Whether it was the quality of the shows, the stiff competition, the backs and forths on the sheets, a year you marched and just loved, whatever it is, what do you consider to be DCI's best year? For me, I feel somewhat objectively that 2008 was the best year DCI has seen in a looooong time. Phantom being up at the top and overtaking BD was a huge moment for the Corps. However, almost every single show that year was a show I genuinely enjoyed. Crown had one of the highest scoring 4th place shows ever, Cavies performed the heck out of a great themed show, Cadets did, well Cadet things, and the rest of them I really felt just all did such a great job. What is your favorite year/what do you think has been the overall best year for DCI?
  5. Am I the only one who thinks show announcements are getting later and later every year? The kids of these Corps are going to be moving in in just about 3 weeks and we still don't have show announcements. I feel just 8-9 years ago the vast majority of Corps would have full program announcements by the end of March at the very latest, and then it slowly moved into mid-April and now we are at the beginning of May and we don't have hardly anything on several huge corps (Crown, BD, Bloo, SCV, Phantom..) Why the delays? Does anyone know?
  6. I would have to say that Cavaliers 2003 solidly beat BD in my book. Crown 2008 was seriously amazing. I would have put them over the Cavaliers. 2012 crown was probably my favorite crown show of all time. Really thought it was better than bd. Seriously check out how much they are jazz running in that show, just flying in that field. 2009 crown and cadets were better Than bd, and 2001 Cavaliers were scored too high.
  7. Well it seems no one is enjoying the idea. Well it was worth asking. I still thino it enough emphasis was put on the award then the corps would start to compete for the fans. Yes there will always be biased alumni and there will always be immature youngsters who vote just to vote and get friends in on it but wouldn't that create more excitement? I would love to see BD put on a show that is only meant to generate fan favorite rewards. You all are simply so pessimistic about everything and How it wouldn't work. Everyone, including judges, are biased to some degree or another. However for the purpose of discussion I will conceed and say that the idea is not a good one.
  8. Each phone would only get one vote... And it wouldn't be any kind of popularity contest. The award would be given to the most entertaining show. You don't think that DCI fans would be able to take it with maturity??
  9. Please forgive me if this topic has been created or has already been discussed to death, I took a 2 year hiatus from DCP from 2011 to 2013 and there is a possibility that this topic has already been addressed, but here goes. I understand the judging system and competitive nature of DCI and the reasons behind why the organisation is the way it is. I love the competitiveness and I hope it never changes. I love how certain corps obtain caption awards despite not being in 1st place overall, and I love the focus that DCI has on excellence, and the rewards associated with high levels of performance. My question is, why is there not a special award that fans can give out? Why doesnt DCI let you text them (only one vote per registered phone number) your favorite show? Why isnt there a fan-favorite award? I think it would be so interesting and rewarding for a corps that may not be the most proficient and innovative on the field to receive a "everyone liked your show the most" award. I feel this would be very easy to do... Heck reality shows do it all the time by having people vote in with a phone and then awarding a particular person who has the most votes. Why doesnt DCI do this? Even if they were to only allow participants who were actually live at the stadium, who could, upon the ending of the show, text a specific number their vote (which number would only be disclosed after the event is over, and the judges are determining scores anyways) of who they enjoyed watching/hearing the most? We could even create sub captions. Who had the most entertaining show visually, or musically, or who had the greatest "wow" factor or "best uniforms" or whatever, but something that would give fans the option of giving their $.02. What do you guys think? Why doesnt DCI do this?
  10. I couldn't disagree with you more... Maybe on percussion and guard but Cavaliers 2004 were much better in GE as well as brass than BD... Heck the drill in Cavaliers 2004 was just phenomenal as well
  11. 1- Cavaliers 2004 2- Cavaliers 2002 3- crown 2008 4- phantom 2008 5- cadets 2011 6- Cavaliers 2011 7- crown 2012 (thought this show was better than crown 2013 with regards to entertainment) 8- bluecoats 2010 9- Cavaliers 2006 10-crown 2014 (those brass runs in the closer just had me like :O ) 11- Cavaliers 2005 12- crown 2009 I don't know what it is with cavalier shows, but they just entertain the heck out of me. I really appreciate Good and innovative drill and I think that's why so many of the early to mid 2000's with Cavaliers were so cool. Michael ganes was just such a beast.
  12. I find the post intriguing. If you look at this years shows, you will see an excessive amount of standing and playing and then moving slightly with choreographed movement (dance almost) and then continuing to stand still. Almost every show this year had a prevalent amount of this type of "drill" to simulate movement and it was a bit disappointing. I believe that it can all (both drill and music) be synthesized to a tasteful degree but I fear it has gotten out of hand. The most memorable and amazing shows throughout dci's history have not had excessive amounts of simulation. It should continue to be that way
  13. I think design teams have gotten stubborn over the years as well. They do what they want when they want and they don't really react to fans or judges as much. I know that back in the day our director would ask us our thoughts as members and ask us for ideas and we would give feedback that actually mattered to them. It seems now a days that the directors know what they want to do and don't see a need to change things up as much as fine tune and clean. That's just my observation.
  14. Cavaliers 2002. Everything was original and that speaks for itself. The design of the show with how difficult and well executed everything was still astounds me today. Cadets 2005 was amazing as well. I just have never been able to enjoy a bd show. I can appreciate their level of skill and what they achieve but I have never walked away from a single season of drum corps and said that they had one of my favorite shows. Therefore bias is in my vote slightly
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