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Top 10 Favorite shows of all time!


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20 hours ago, DrumManTx said:

I haven't put one of these together in a long time, I should do that.  

 I'd be interested in reading what yours are when you have it for us too, DrumManTx.

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This has to have been one of the Top 10 toughest decisions of my life...

  1. Vanguard 1999
  2. Bluecoats 2016
  3. Blue Devils 2000
  4. Phantom 2008
  5. Madison 1995
  6. Cavaliers 2011
  7. Vanguard 2016
  8. Bluecoats 2013
  9. Crown 2008
  10. Cadets 2000
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18 hours ago, BRASSO said:

 I'd be interested in reading what yours are when you have it for us too, DrumManTx.

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.  

  1. 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.  
  2. 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.  
  3. 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.  
  4. 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.  
  5. 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.  
  6. 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.  
  7. 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.  
  8. 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.  
  9. 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.  
  10. 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.  
  11. 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.  
  12. 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.  
  13. 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.  
  14. 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.  
  15. 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.  

Edited by DrumManTx
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 I had pretty much forgotten about the Glassmen shows over the years...until DrumManTx brought them up here in one of his listings. The Glassmen had several shows that I enjoyed.. and '98 was an overall well coordinated one from them I thought as well.

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13 hours ago, DrumManTx said:

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.  

 

Umm, it's like you 100% read my mind. I haven't been much of a BD fan since the early 2000s, but I will jamming this as loud as I can until the day I die. 

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Oh wow I forgot like 3 or 4 shows.....l edited those in.   And CRAP I forgot another one in the 2007 Phantom Regiment.......####.  

1 hour ago, snare_guy_83 said:

Umm, it's like you 100% read my mind. I haven't been much of a BD fan since the early 2000s, but I will jamming this as loud as I can until the day I die. 

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.  

Edited by DrumManTx
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