Sailing into Annapolis

[George Dixon]

Cadets scope

https://www.pscp.tv/w/bE_f9TQyNTM5Njd8MXZPR3dPV3liUWRHQodPTfH_mb18n6sXR5vuuN0VWh1AyG0J_WUfl3JxCUsX

 

[denverjohn]

4 minutes ago, George Dixon said:

They've gotta have like an original BD uniformed member be showing through the window at the end IMO

[PeterGibbons]

Just got home from the show. Was really worried it would get rained out given the heavy downpour I drove through to get to Annapolis.

My third year attending this show and each year the show logistics seem to get worse. They just don't have enough stadium staff to deal with the crowd. One gate, one (slow) concession stand. I heard one of the ladies at the game saying they were told about 2,500 people is all. Show started really late because, I assume, of the lines to get in the stadium. Then the lines to simply get through the tunnel to your seat took 15 minutes. Ok enough about that. 

Pioneer. Gosh those kids try but I cringed. Sounded like a bad high school bad.

Surf. Was better than I expected the the plum trick as well as the rotation of the backgrounds help the show. Young group but you can see they really try hard. Hoping to are able to make Semis.

Spirit. Honestly the show left no impression on me other than the delta on the uniforms.

Scouts. Found myself a couple of times during the show looking around the stadium but I give the performers a lot of credit that they are putting EVERYTHING they have into their performance. Show design works a lot better in person. I don't love the show, mainly because there isn't any music in it that I want to hum. But I respect the show. 

Academy. Very fun. Seen it a few times on the interwebs. Too bad they won't make finals. I thought they marched well and played well. Guess the lower scores are in things I am not able to judge.

Blue Devils. I'm a Vanguard guy at heart but #### if this show isn't incredible. For me the best BD show in recent memory. I think this is a lock to win (sorry). Just has the whole package. Noticed some small things live that I have not via youtube or flo. The reflective sides to the stairs really add a great element to the show. The are a bit flimsy and thus wave a bit. But I really like the effect. 

Cadets. I still would rather hear Barbara Maroney play Mass instead of having it sung by a choir. But this show is soooo much better in person. Some stages in changes (the choir has been moved to the left) and they brought back the bells from 2011. Have to say the robes during the first part didn't bother me seeing it live, and frankly the later two uniforms come across 'Cadets' to me. But he big deal here is the new closer. My oh my. How they hold the ending for as long as they do is beyond me. I didn't expect that ending and it brought a bigger response from the crowd than did BD. It is really something.

 

[MotoSurfBass]

16 minutes ago, PeterGibbons said:

~snip~

Not a bad review, but this:

16 minutes ago, PeterGibbons said:

Pioneer. Gosh those kids try but I cringed. Sounded like a bad high school bad.

 

[ftwdrummer]

Back from the show.

Brought a friend to her first live show, after she did the theater thing with me last August.

Getting in was a moderate fiasco. The will call line was wrapped almost all the way back around to the side of the stadium. And the concourse really isn't wide enough to fit everyone's souvenir stuff in. Setting it up in the pavilion as you came in the north side of the stadium would have worked much better.

Friend likes Les Mis, so was appreciative of Pioneer, even if they weren't the best. Vocalist is just as good as last year (but has better material this year).

Having Spirit followed by Surf is illustrative for getting a feel for the two hornlines, because Spirit's closer is Surf's opener. My read from my seats was that Surf was louder, but Spirit had a cleaner sound. Talking drum synth thing in Spirit was not nearly as offensive here as it was when I saw them in Lynn, possibly because I wasn't directly in front of the speakers tonight.

Plume change for Surf worked very well! Also, I was able to identify the subway signs on the sideline in about five seconds--that's the exit to subway at New York Penn Station, facing south (which is why the Seventh Avenue lines are to the left). New backdrops work much better than the trash bags did (go figure).

Madison shouting "WITNESS ME" as a group as they came on the field was a nice touch. On the whole, the biggest issue I have with that show is that there are points where it's too drum corps for their material--there are points where they do precision marching while not playing which looks good from a drum corps perspective, but doesn't fit a post-apocalyptic oxygen-deprived waste land. "Music for Prague" chords were excellent. Kudos to the victorious guard member for riding the fleur-de-lis podium out in a Captain Morgan pose. I'm hoping that they make a finals-week change of the change of leadership being represented by removing the corrupted fleur and replace it with a real one. Regardless, this is a finals contender. Got a reasonable number of people standing afterward.

Either Academy's pit had a bad night tonight phasing-wise, or I was not seated in a place that would allow them to sound in synch with the battery. They sounded off pretty much all night--looked like they might have been struggling a bit with the pit re-org. This was...this was fun. Kudos for the rabbits-hitting-hunter-heads-in-synch-with-anvil-hits in the Anvil Chorus. And the first strain of Ride of the Valkyries got the appropriate laughs, because even just hearing the line out of context with nothing to make you think it sounds like "Kill the Wabbit." I had Madison ahead of them personally, but that show sure is fun.

Devils...on the whole, I appreciate the show. There are some things that read oddly to me--in "Everything Must Change," the horns are walking to their spots without playing in a particular stylized way, which works...but they're moving as if nothing around them exists, which reads oddly to me. It'd make more sense to me if they were more varied...some people walking solo, some people meeting up/fistbump/walk together, that sort of thing. I also wish they held the last note of "Everything Must Change" two beats longer, just to let the soloist go up to the fifth for two beats (currently he ends the piece on the third for two beats). And while they play the h*ck out of it, the jazz rock-out feels...for lack of a better term, perfunctory, musically. It might work better if there was more trombone groove to build into it? But these are fairly minor quibbles, and it's a tribute to how good this show is that I'm picking things like that up. It's an excellent show, and one I quite enjoyed (though I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been on the wrong side for "Everything Must Change"...but I was on the correct side for the opening, which is spectacular). Deserved to win, and if it wins next week, it'll deserve it there, too. I think it may have been slightly overscored tonight just from a calendar perspective (it's the sort of score I'd have expected them to get when I see them this weekend, but not this early in the week, if that makes sense), but I can't disagree with the result (and having another corps in their competitive bracket might change that, of course). I'm now looking forward to seeing Clara in the window in the theater broadcast next week, even though I initially thought it would just be fan-service to do that. There's a clear way for it to work now, where there wasn't before.

Cadets were vastly improved from when I last saw them live (Lynn). Staging the choir in the center works much better. The purple stained glass also works much better, and the purple flag effect works very well in the Forgiven section--it truly does look like the flags are pouring out of the glass to fill the field. I'm not sure why, but the two "Let us pray"s worked tonight, when they didn't in Lynn. Cutting the "I confess" narration worked very well. Moving the introductions around worked, as did the vocalist on "Simple Song" (though I did rather like the flugel--his response works nicely, though). And the dissolving company front works delightfully. It's interesting...the show definitely got more overtly religious since I last saw it...but is coming across as less preachy now. I think it now reads more theatrically--more like the theater piece it's intended to be--than it did before? Anyway...dissolving company front + Lancaster church bells + plagal cadence is a kinda epic way to end a show. While I haven't seen Boston live, I think Cadets can legitimately pass them now, whereas I didn't think they could when BAC first passed them up based on my initial read. It's not the greatest Cadets show ever (or even the greatest Cadets show since I started following drum corps--2005, 2007, 2011 all wave hello), but it's a good show, and represents an excellent turn-around design-wise from last year. And it feels like Cadets in a way that last year never did.

All in all, good time. Friend was quite glad she came, too. I can't wait to see these again (and all the other shows this year) in Allentown.

[dcsnare93]

1 hour ago, PeterGibbons said:

Cadets. I still would rather hear Barbara Maroney play Mass instead of having it sung by a choir. But this show is soooo much better in person. Some stages in changes (the choir has been moved to the left) and they brought back the bells from 2011. Have to say the robes during the first part didn't bother me seeing it live, and frankly the later two uniforms come across 'Cadets' to me. But he big deal here is the new closer. My oh my. How they hold the ending for as long as they do is beyond me. I didn't expect that ending and it brought a bigger response from the crowd than did BD. It is really something.

 

That ending was definitely one of the highlights Saturday when I saw them in Atlanta. Crowd erupted then too. Simply magnificent.

[Everyfan]

5 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

I like the Dance Marathon part.  

That part totally reminds me of the finish in 05. I actually looked up the music credits to check.