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Control the dialogue? Don't put me in that category, that's sure as hell not my intention. Just responding to what has been said the previous few pages. I know those are your views, but you made those comparisons. (I'm thinking more of others who miss the good ol days). I guess I'm just saying that this: It's a different Cavaliers, let's see what happens and not go off of what they've done in the past under different leadership. If you want to, that's cool, but I'm not and those are my reasons why. Could care less if I'm wrong, just giving them the benefit of the doubt. The description of the show has me very excited........sounds very Bluecoats 2014 to me. I find it incredibly interesting the views on the announcement, it's very split down the middle. Very curious.

Or they could just play it? GROUNDBREAKING. I know, let that sink in for a second. I can just see your faces right now. Spoiler alert, this isn't the Cavaliers of the early 2000s any more. Last years book was no Crown book, but it wasn't a walk in the park complexity wise. It had some nice licks in there. To me their brass is headed in a very good direction if the improvement from 2013 - 2014 is any indication. I don't think they'd just select some brass band music to water it down. I agree with what was said earlier, if they're picking music like that they obviously have some faith in their kids and staff. I could be COMPLETELY wrong, which would be really disappointing, but I think they're going to start to really grow. I think the strength, speed, agility, flexibility, and mental power they mention in their show announcement could apply musically as well......we'll see. Not trying to get too feisty, but it's like we can't let go of the Cavaliers we see them as from the early 2000s. I think the sooner we realize this is a new group really improving after where they were in 2012, the sooner we can enjoy. I mean these two clips made me more excited than a bunch of stuff I listened to pre 2012 from them (no offense). They did that stuff great, but it's gone now. Time to move on and embrace the future! https://twitter.com/CavsBrass/status/579783309472976899 https://twitter.com/CavsBrass/status/579775889459798016

I've seen some of the parts and there are a few black notes on the page. Also some rumors of the brass working on their triple tounging Arban's between camps. But we shall see what is on the field. As far as design, I see 2011 Cavaliers and 2014 Bluecoats. Open ended concepts with semi defined parameters, yet about high-level performance.

Man, I wish those kinds of mix ups happened in DCI more often. In the scholastic side of things you had a group go 18th, 10th, 7th. Independent had movement all over the place. Exciting!

I'm just going off of what this staff has given us post 2012, not some perfect vision in my mind. So......I'm not just having wishful thinking before seeing the show. The shows are less visually reliant, and have more prominent brass among other elements. They are not trying to emulate what they did before 2012, at least not to me in any way. Influences, perhaps. And I disagree. Ok, if we're talking politics or something else that wouldn't sit well with me either. Maybe I could have worded that better. BUT, if we want the Cavaliers to try and do what they did in the past, we're going to be dissapointed. The Saucedo books + the Gaines visual programs are gone. If we keep expecting that, we're going to be dissapointed because those just won't happen any more. If someone wants to try and convince me that's a bad idea, go for it. You won't. I did that last year and it turned out to be one of my favorite shows of the year. I guess if we want to sit in our bedrooms and watch Machine and Frameworks and pray for the day for Gaines and Saucedo to descend from heaven to return, you can. Just like all these people want G horns and un-amplified pits and yadayada back. Or we can sit back, and enjoy what has been a corps that had a rough transition and are ascending and improving into something great and new. Will there be bumps in the road? Absolutely. But it certainly makes it easier to watch and more enjoyable. Your pick...... I just find it really hard to believe that they'd pick brass band music and not let the brass play the fun stuff. Talk about sucking the fun out of the source music.

Saying RCC is "Blue Devils winter program" is like saying Rhythm X is Bluecoats winter program. Neither of those paints an accurate picture and does a disservice to the folks that make each of those programs what they are today.

And the eagle landed perfectly on the downbeat! Heh, I know some drummers who can't do that!

In the earliest years WGI World Championships moved around quite a bit before settling down mostly in Dayton. In 1990 World Championships was in Buffalo, NY, 1997 in Phoenix, AZ, early 2000's in San Diego, CA, Milwaukee, WI a bit later, and maybe a few other moves I've forgotten. Units on the coasts and other far-flung places have complained for many years about always having to travel long distances and "why can't it be (here) for a change?" But with the huge need for rehearsal time requiring cooperation from many schools and districts and other logistical nightmares moving championships in more recent years has been fraught with enough difficulties to make staying at Dayton awfully attractive. And it's certainly much closer to being a central location than the other locales clamoring for a turn.

There was a year, I believe 1996 or 1997 that they held them in Pheonix. I believe it's been Dayton historically pretty much the whole time, I doubt it'll change.

I feel like these selections so far are just imitations of last year's source music? The Bon Iver resembles the Vienna Teng and Dense resembles Uffe's Woodshop. Unfortunately so far, they don't sound as cool as their Tilt counterparts. Though I'm sure the audience would love to see Tilt 2, repeat shows aren't that fun. And maybe I'm completely wrong, so we'll just wait and see. In other words, I'm not fan girling yet.

I have always been confused by the Conflict of Interest dimension of judging in our activity, who taught whom back when and judges now, whose kid marches where and the parent/relative is judging them, who teaches at what school and works M-F with which teacher who is teaching this competing unit on the weekend... But look at Cavaliers scores. S. Koter, usually the program director for the design team of Cavies drum corps, scores them well below the other GE judge, in fact has them 12th in Musical component. Never ceases to amaze me.

It would explain pulse getting past them. I sill see no reason why x deserved second, but then again, I am a front ensemble kid. Either way, the judging this weekend was inconsistent at best and bad at worst, and that's coming from someone who benefited from it.

I'm nuts of course. But I didn't say anything about instructional staff. Design is another matter. How long has the current team been together? IMO you don't just "reload" on the design side. You try to put together the magic recipe and when you find it you stick with it. When you lose a key ingredient you need to find a new recipe because you're not going to find that same key ingredient again. Of course it's sacrilege to the BD-faithful to suggest that they might slip from the the very top. So I'm not surprised at your reaction.

So far this is what I've gathered from this thread: 1. The quality of the show logo is somehow indicative of the quality of the playing and marching in the show. 2. Talking about athleticism means they are going to "hose" brass parts. 3. This could be really good or really bad. I'm set to wait and see the show until I pass judgement, I definitely won't pass judgement on a show from the LOGO of the show. 15 Minutes of Fame didn't know what it wanted to be. They had so many things going on (all the musical selections) and the "idea" behind that theme was just too esoteric and hard to present. The explanation behind this show makes it sound like they are just giving a name to this to have something for the announcers to say when introducing them, not so much a story or anything like that. Worked for Coats last year.

Beer before a contest? In senior corps? How very shocking?

[quote name="xandandl" post="3433071" timestamp="1428763164" Is Pioneer from Romeoville, Illinois really the drum and bugle corps from the Milwaukee suburbs of Wisconsin, Jeff? They are. Adam Hill, longtime performing member and designer/instructor/caption head for Pioneer is a teacher at Romeoville so they utilize that benefit for the indoor unit. He also was instrumental in making the Pioneer indoor group happen and is the executive director which are more reasons. Hope the info helps.

Correct, RCC is a program of the Blue Devils now.

Mr. Monk, You are entitled to your opinion. Here is the official DCI statement on which I based my words. Posted by DCI (dci.org) Thursday, April 9, 2015 - 11:35 AM Formed in 1998, Riverside Community College (RCC) Indoor Percussion—which recently joined force with the Blue Devils organizations —has been among WGI’s most successful groups. The WGI Independent World Class (PIW) group has never finished outside the top four, earning four world titles along the way. Read more: http://www.dci.org/news/view.cfm?news_id=7c0a2e2b-8667-44b5-a09a-f2def88dfd15#ixzz3X0vLVADE X again: I have enjoyed RCC every time I have seen them,

Nah Ghost. When Troops first took this gig, Blue Stars were still Spring Training in Greater Indy area. Bluecoats were less than three hours away to the east, Cavies at Eastern Ill. to the west about the same. Troopers, with consultant Donnie Van Doren from Bloomington, IN, saw a national platform possibility and grapped it. One version of the story I heard was that the corps moved Spring training to take the gig. It also made fly-ins for Spring training easier when matched to the same airport for fly-outs after DCI Finals. America's corps for sure.

nah... Barker kicked Sandlers butt in that movie..... Sadly Richard "Jaws/Mr Larson" Kiel passed last September....

The 1968 Skyliners were a great corps, loaded with talent, and it was difficult for some of those cats to process the concept that the Sunrisers, "a bunch of college boys", could actually out-point them...ever. They got used to it, and there were no more "Happy Birthdays".

DCI's been getting a little better at this. Like choosing the Troopers to represent DCI in the Indy 500 parade for the last few years. There is quite a bit of love for the not-top-6 corps from DCI HQ.

Because he fully embraced them and rode the change to one of the most successful periods in SCV's history? And before we chase this rabbit-hole about drum corps v. marching band, it was a short-sighted statement. Drum corps started sounding much better after the switch away from piston/rotor horns, and the 80s are usually viewed as the zenith of performance amongst most of this site's audience.

"Two valves horn signal the end of drum corps and the beginning of marching band." -Gail Royer (I admit this is paraphrased, but Gail did rally pretty hard against two-valved instruments.

Bass trumpets.

No. Her marching experience as a performer ended when she graduated from Joliet West High School. I was the music arranger/visual caption head at the time. Great person that just loved the activity.

Regiment.org is reporting that the US Army trumpeters were led and conducted by a Phantom Regiment alum, Treg Ancelet, one of the many Regiment alums now professional musicians in the U.S. military. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jrB9a_fE6w&feature=youtu.be Back-up band of trumpeters who squared the playing court were from three of the Indiana college bands of Bloomington, Ball State, and Purdue U. DM for Purdue this year was Sean Hadley, former Madison Scouts DM. Both Bloomie and Ball have many DCI members in their football bands too.

Have we ever had a vote for most unreadable post on DCP?

The irony is that that Duke's pep band includes two Cadets (marched '14 and '15) and that the new drum major of the Duke University Marching Band (yes, DUMB) is a Cadet. They audaciously showed up at the last Cadet's winter camp wearing Blue Devils tee shirts................................just to see Hopkins' reaction when they challenged him to spell Coach K's family name backwards, ho, ho. Now being a Cadet AND a Blue Devil simultaneously..............................that might rate a trip to INFERNO.

Hmmm ... another off year for Carolina? (Of course, this August they will do MUCH better.)

Good lord, the attempts at humor on DCP... Anyway, go Wisconsin.

Since Hopkins just upped the Spring Training fee by $200 per member because of the higher costs of Ohio rentals, that's certainly going to buy quite a few ears of corn. Of course, back in the Atlantic East that would be Country Gentlemen, Silver and Gold, and other "sweet" varieties people eat, not that cattle corn that appears in the MidEast and Midwest with names like DeKalb, etc. True story of Cadets' travails in Ohio. Back in the early eighties the corps was billeted for a few days at Centreville H.S. in Centerville outside of Dayton. At that time Centreville (where my brother-in-law grew up) was still growing and the high school was surrounded by farm fields and pasture, not the McMansions subdivisions there today. Because the previous night the corps had been caught in a deluge on the contest field at another show, uniform parts including cummerbunds and side sashes were placed along the outside fences to dry while the corps went off to practice. Lo and behold, the neighboring cows found the same fences, seemed drawn to the bright sunrise gold colors and enjoyed nibbling on the cummerbunds, A few tug of wars allowed the corps to be dressed for the gate in time; the cow tipping that might have occurred after lights out may have been a bit of revenge from Easterners who certainly learned their lesson! If you ever grab Hopkins' ear, ask him about his dealings with Zingali, the Steinbrenners and the Columbus Clippers. Then stand way back...

Such a slippery slope, so take credit away from the Cavies, PR, Star, Crossmen in the early 90's, etc due to BD and SCV slipping from their prior dominance in the rankings. Brilliant logic.

Ugh... he must've taken the James Swearingen at-home course on naming pieces of music. :)

I hope you had the sarcasm button on when you posted. My first year in drum corps was 1964...

Same here... In 7th grade I marched in a Div III corps and the first show we had with open class corps got rained out. The Crossmen were still in town and did a clinic the next day. After the first 5 minutes of their show I knew where I wanted to march.

for Spring Training/Move Ins BD is indeed "on their own" for housing. There are a lot of local families who take in the corps members, many are parents or alumni of the corps, a few of the members will rent an apartment for a month or two for move ins. SCV goes up to Weed,CA right by Mt. Shasta for move ins (very beautiful view), then they move down to Tollhouse the week before the first show. BDB and SCVC are housed by local members within the corps.

Sitting in the stands as a soon to be freshman in high school, in '92 at my first corps show, and hearing that drum feature from the Crossmen. I turned to our band's drum major and the upper-classmen members of the drumline that brought me with them to the contest, and I said, "I am going to march for the Crossmen one day!!!" The drum major said, "Better get practicing." and some of the senior drumline members laughed. All of them came to watch me my first year at Finals!

Only booing I ever heard in 08 came from a gentleman in a BD jacket making an ### of himself as the corps were slowly meandering off the field. I can understand why the crowd reaction to second place would have stung, but IMO it can mostly be attributed to surprise at the result. I know I was shocked. It had been decades since the semifinals winner had not also won finals night, and I honestly never expected to see any movement in the top spot at finals. Combine the surprise with the Phantom's unforgettable performance, and there you have it.

I'd imagine that instead of the hat they'd use the Sorting Cone

BDs horns sounded like ### at the end of the show in 08, over playing the horn, bad sounds, stick outs. Some big overhype from BD. But the crowd ate it up. Probably the 3rd most enthusiastic crowd response of the night. Behind Phantom then Crown. No one even touched Phantom though. The majority of the crowd was engaged 100% of the show. If that doesn't warrant a win, I don't know what does. Just being clean doesn't win you a championship. The tick era is long gone. Phantom was clean enough to win that night. And hey they really cleaned up a lot of that drill, a lot of it hit that night that didn't hit at all during the season... they pulled a visual show out of their ##### that surprised the heck out of me. Give credit where credit is due. And the way the numbers added up they ended up a smidge ahead. And being in that audience... most of the cheering i heard was pro Phantom. Didn't really hear much along the lines of negativity to BD, not much pro BD, but PR won that audience over emotionally. And it's possible they got to some judges... but the judges are also fans, and I think 2008 then the reactions to 2009 and 2010 really opened up some eyes on what should be rewarded by the judges. Now if you want to say there was negativity towards BD in 09 and especially in 10... I could agree with you. And if someone brings up "oh the kids!!! you can't act negatively towards the kids!" Ed Rendell thinks you're a wuss. At BD, they are mainly college "kids" who know what they are getting into. And you aren't going to bruise their ego. It's a competitive activity whether you like it or not... we need some thicker skin.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the claims that the crowd (the tone suggested to me a huge portion of the crowd, like perhaps the majority, but I'd be happy to accept any clarification on that point) was taunting BD and cheering not so much for Phantom as against BD. As overwhelming evidence to the contrary on that point, I would submit the response of the crowd when Phantom played that night, long before anyone knew who was going to win.If the behavior of some fans of a given corps that you happen to encounter could be said to characterize an organization, or all of its fans, or everyone who roots for them or cheered enthusiastically for them on a given night, then based on everything I've seen for the past 20 years, you would have some bad news for anyone here who has ever been part of, a fan of, rooted for or cheered enthusiastically for ANY highly competitive corps here...

Stepping back now several years from the actual events and being no fan of 'booing" in most circumstances....plus not taking anything away from the energy that Phantom Regiment's performance generated in 2008, I wonder if a sociologist and an anthropologist looking at 2007 and 2008 would conclude that the negative energy BD (and fans) might have felt in 2008 was partially in response to how the California fans treated performers in Pasadena, the hash-gate year!?!? I'm not saying that 2008 was a direct retribution for the failure of 2007 but that it helped to set a mood and context for what followed.. Besides everyone cheers an underdog, especially when David slays Goliath. That Pasadena episode of "booing" was probably one of the lowest points of DCI history.

Totally agree. On our way to the hotel after we stopped to grab food and were in line with some fans of Phantom and had a member of BD directly behind us. The Phantom fans proceeded to spend the duration of the wait rubbing it in the BD members face as well. In true class, the BD member was polite and talked about how great Phantom was, too bad the ######## in front of us couldn't be as classy.

"Ho ho ho." That is what he said. That is what Kris Kringle said.

Evidently the Allentown office reads DCP! (2012 and 2014)

I was in the crowd for both the finals performance and the results in 2008. In many ways (especially during the PR performance) it was amazing. In others, it got very ugly—excessively so. People booed BD extremely harshly. The crowd was basically taunting BD from the beginning, and then the roar of the crowd and BD's reaction to it were pretty unfortunate, honestly. I just felt like A LOT of those cheers came at the expense of BD, and not because PR had just won. That's probably an extremely unpopular opinion, but it's how I felt when I was there, and it's how I feel looking back on it. I know judges are "unbiased" and whatnot, but they clearly were swayed towards Phantom that year, probably almost entirely by the crowd. In an isolated setting without all of that hype and buildup, I'm not even sure if Phantom was the second best corps there. As far as highlights are concerned, that is certainly the most notable moment for me from an audience's perspective, personally, even if it isn't entirely positive. The biggest highlight I can remember in terms of almost universal popularity is SCV 09 during the Simple Gifts company front. #### was rocking that year.

Having missed out on that experience myself (I marched in '85 and '86) I can really appreciate that. I can't call it a regret since I wouldn't have marched anywhere else, but I am saddened that I never had that experience. I do feel pride though anytime I see them knowing that without our '86 group persevering through a very difficult year there very well may have not been a Crossmen anymore.

"After a wildly successful record-breaking audition turnout, this corps is SERIOUSLY moving up the ranks this season!"

I'm so lost with this thread. I leave one day and I return to "the zone".