Jump to content

Revolution Family Day Performance Review


Recommended Posts

Just got back from Revolution's Family / Media Day picnic and performance.

First off, let me congratulate the city of San Antonio on actually using the display screens above their freeways for pertinent information. It was nice to actually know that there was an accident ahead and how long it would take to get there... Wish Austin would actually *activate* the brand new screens all over town that have been put up over the past few years.

The performance was at King's Cross High School, a tiny little school in a poorer section of San Antonio. They had a teeny little set of bleachers, but a wonderful looking track and field surface. I guess the recent rains helped.

There was about 50-100 people there to watch (I'm a terrible judge of crowd numbers, BTW), and I think they should have renamed this the Family / Mike Day event, 'cause I think I was the only media there. :) (May not be true, but it felt like it!) I brought my wife and daughter (18 months old), figuring that she likes my tapes so much, she oughta get a kick out of the real thing for the first time.

The schedule was running a bit behind, so we got to watch the guard warm up while we were waiting. The guard unis are black, with stripes of blue, yellow and red on the left side. I don't know a whole lot about guard, but they seemed to be pretty together to me.

Corps proper is using Glassmen's old uniforms, without the logo on the chest, of course. Makes them look a lot more... dunno... professional, I guess, than the old uniforms. Makes them look bigger and older, that's for sure.

While we were waiting on the corps to finish setting up, director John Rodriguez gave a speech about the program. It's titled Explorations I, and is intended to be the first part of a 3-year series. The music is from Edward Gregson's Connotations. (Listen to Sky Ryders 1993 for the only other corps to try playing it.) He did drop on the parents there that they are hoping to be Division I by 2005 or 2006, depending on how the finances work out, but they're not going to move up until *they're* sure that they're ready organizationally. Good for them.

The field program this year is intended to be more of a wavey program - up down up down - rather than an "impact" program. And they're going to start with no color on the field, and work in colored flags (and reveal the guard unis) as the show goes on.

Finally, they had gone through several versions of the closer since they'd returned from 1st tour (where they only had 3 of the 4 songs on the field) and the full show we were watching had only been installed for 3 days as of today. Naturally it was going to be a little rough around the edges.

About this time my daughter is getting grumpy, and the people around us are getting grumpy at her. :( Feels bad to be the one with the irate kid at a function.

The corps comes up and does their backfield warmup. I think it's the same Mahler 5 that Cavies used in 2000. Pretty cool.

Corps is small for division II, but has a pretty big drumline. I counted 7 snares, 3 tenors, 5 basses, 7 pit. Couldn't count brass or guard - sorry. They move too much. :) In total, I think they had about 75 members.

Musical program is presented in 4 pieces - opener, ballad (waltz), drum feature, closer (multi-meter and very, *very* fast).

You'd better like the theme to Connotations, which is a theme and variations, by the way, or else this is going to be a long 11 minutes for you. It's in there a *lot*. Happily, I really like the original piece, so I was fine with it. :)

Once the music started, my daughter not only forgot her tantrum, she started watching everything going on. Then she started conducting with the DM. I mean, the girl is 18 months old, and she's waving her arms around happily while sitting in my lap. I never regretted forgetting my camera so much in my life - she's never done anything like that before!

The strength of the corps is absolutely the drumline. They get a few exposed segments throughout the show, and a *long* drum feature in the 3rd movement, and they stand out and command attention when they do get those parts. My only complaint is that they're on the move so much during those segments, that it's hard to get a read on what they're doing sometimes. Stand still and let us bask in their glory! :) Pit also shined - they added some tremendous volume to impact points throughout the show - far more than would be expected.

The horns, however, need work. There are a lot of exposed segments for them in the show, and I counted at least 3 sets of measures where different ends of the line were trading off 16th note runs. Once they get this cleaned up, it's going to be an awesome effect. As best as I can tell (I'm a drummer) the horn mix sounded nice and balanced - it was just a raw sound sometimes. Again, nothing cleaning can't fix.

The guard was hard to watch - we were low, and they spent a lot of the time either behind the corps or off to the wings, but they had nice ensemble work, and a *really* nice wave of rifle tosses that go down the line, around a curve, and to the end of the formation.

Our vantage point - the tiny bleachers - was *really* low, so the entire drill was pretty much lost on us. All we could make out was "okay, that's supposed to be drill, all right" or "okay, that's a company front." Beyond that, the subtleties were lost.

However, the marching program at this point is *really* dirty. My wife noticed a fair amount of collisions, and I saw weird intervals and more than a few get-back-on-step type hops. To be fair, though - this is a reworked and new program to them. It's not anything that's not cleanable, I think. Just a matter of time.

I'm not dogging on the corps at all, and don't mean to sound like I am - I think it's a tremendously sophisticated program, far more ambitious than even last year's championship show - and it will be a monster when it's clean. It's still early - so they've got to just go out and do it. :)

After the performance, and the percussion trooping the stands (woohoo!), they took a break to water themselves down before doing a standstill of the show. I went to harass Cathy Benford, their Booster Coordinator (among many hats), about souvies. They didn't have any XXL shirts :( so I couldn't get anything to wear from them for San Antonio, sadly.

Also at this point, my daughter was getting hungry (and past her bedtime) so we bid farewell to Texas's only active junior corps and headed home. I'm glad we went - it reminded me of how much fun live corps are (after only having DVD and CD since last summer) and how much progress Revolution has made since the first performance I saw them at when they played on the patio of the Alamodome in 2000.

(And Evan Morgan was MIA! Was going to introduce him to my family... :( )

Will they win D2 this year? Right now, probably not, though I'm also the idio... er, guy that said after San Antonio last year that "they're definately top 6 material in Division III." The show is obviously dirty right now. But I couldn't see or hear any issues that couldn't or shouldn't be corrected as they get more familiar with the entire show, and if they can clean it to the standards they had last year, then they will *certainly* make a run at the top. It does have that much potential. And that prediction I *will* stand by!

Feel free to PM me with questions or comments.

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow. Great review. Thanks so much for the 411.

I was surprised to hear the corps won't be using any color to start the show. When SkyRyders played that same music in '93, at the start of the season, they had no color at all. As the season progressed, they added a sash to the corps proper and some other color, presumably because their GE scores were relatively low. The addition of color really helped the show. Hope Revo aren't similarly hampered by their lack of color.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sorry, I think I misspoke. The show starts with no color, but over the 11 minutes they add it to the mix. They do have colorful flags / guard unis - they just save them and add them as the performance goes on! :)

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, we do have XXL shirts after all! We found them in the mix of sizes. I'll save you one for the SA. Come see me at the souvie booth!!! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...