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You and I are 100% in lockstep on that one. VFW and AL members of the 50's and 60's were the vets of WWII and Korea. Like my dad did with me, they placed their kids in the hundreds of small corps all over the country. As those kids aged out, there were fewer and fewer kids to join, as there were fewer and fewer VFW/AL posts and members that survived at a level to support such an activity. That is a part of it, for sure. The many CYO corps sponsored by the Catholic Churches were losing funding and support before DCI ever came along. St Mary's Cardinals became the Beverly Cardinals, Sacred Heart became the Manville Crusaders (right Fran???). Most of the Saint this and Saint that and other Catholic corps just folded...a lot of them before or just into the DCI era. Add to it the anti-establishment mentality of the late 60's-early 70's, and you had fewer and fewer kids who even WANTED to do something that looked like a military-supported activity. Later in the 70's you had the gas crisis, the increased need for insurance and accountability in general followed by 18% inflation that served to kill even more of the "mom and pop" operations, Add the rise of the competitive MB scene, and there was less and less reason for kids to want to spend their summers doing small-time drum corps. Translating to DCA... Fewer and fewer long time junior corps members results in fewer and fewer adults wanting to continue into the all-age arena. It is just a numbers/percentages game. Hence, DCA starts to market and attract younger members as an alternate or a predecessor to DCI. Cadets2 is a prime example. That corps might not have even been formed if the parent organization was not in the main competitive arena of DCA. The other DCA corps get younger and younger as well.

Trolling x3, since he needs to have a blog post, DCP post and Facebook post for every opinion.

Thanks. I now have a very innocuous term for my progressive weight gain which is happening as I get older by the year. I'm not getting fatter...it's merely a matter of "Punctuated Equilibrium."

Correct me if I wasn't completely informed back then, but I don't remember any allegedly real alien entities being mentioned as a design inspiration for the Blue Knights "Avian" guard costuming. http://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/drawing-the-blue-avian/ http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2015/09/14 I can't seem to find any mention of these alleged otherworldly "Blue Avian" peoples before about May of this year. (Not that I searched that hard.) Did a stadium employee, perhaps, show up to work on the day of a 2012 DCI show suffering from an extreme lack of sleep? (Or maybe some other consciousness-altering decision/episode?)

Yes, just imagine the corps of 2015 having to stand through inspection.

Is Nick relying only on his ears to tune the Tymps or does he have any special electronic gizmos to assist him? How much help does he require to make certain his pedals and heads are set up as he prefers? I'm asking because I encounter more folks in the activity who are differently abled and knowledge of solutions to these obstacles can be so, so helpful to others.

I believe the syncing musically and rhythmically with the electronics setup was game changing as that is not easy from a front to back or side to side environment. I can agree with you though that the "what" of it could be a non-game changer.

Now you're just being silly. Bob Barker died my rookie year in 1997. And then, mysteriously, again in 1998

ZING!!! Someone served up the softball and you hit it out of the park!

Yea, just because anything could be defined as a gimmick doesn't necessarily make it bad. If it excites people then it's a win. There are "gimmicks" all over the place across ALL the corps. Love them or hate them, we should all accept them and appreciate what they do. Look at The Academy or Blue Stars, those became fun and entertaining shows, full of gimmicks to excite the audience, and that's what performance is about.

I agree, and in that way IMO Bluecoats 14/15 can compare to Star 92/93. In 1992 Star started experimenting with body sculpting, but didn't have the time/inclination/whatever to add a ton into their design by Finals week. They clearly made the conscious decision to explore that visual idea in depth in 1993 (if you have ever read/hear from Bill Cook's thoughts on the drum corps he flat out has said as much). In 2014 Bluecoats seemed to experiment with electronic sound capabilities. While their designers have always been awesome at weaving electronics into their productions, they really seemed to strive in 2014 to make electronics a unique voice within the ensemble that contributed fully at times, blended well other times, and was integrated with the visual design. Their "tilt chord" was a clear fan favorite moment for the season and got attention from even the most "pedestrian" or casual drum corps fan. That year felt like more of a gimmick than an evolution. In 2015 Bluecoats seemingly jumped into the electronic design full on, committing to making that just as integral a voice at all times as the acoustic instruments: even more so than something like Crown's 'Rach Star' where the piano/synth was a featured voice in an already-established, conventional way. Bluecoats saw the success from their experimentation in 2014 (where electronics/sound design was maybe a handful of featured moments that carried an impact or something) and were inspired to design a show around the sound design in 2015 (where much of the entire show is structured around the electronic/sound design). Just like Star, they took a part of an idea and ran with it the following year. 2015 felt like an evolutionary concept based on past experience from the music design team Unlike Star, it will be interesting to see where Bluecoats go next. Who know what Star would've done to expand on their ideas even further in the competitive DCI idiom; we WILL see what Bluecoats do next. The last few years have been a clear progression for Bluecoats, and we'll know pretty quickly if 2015 is a one-off amazing idea executed well, or has a TON of other opportunities to continually expand/experiment with.

Excellent points. I agree. Even most open class DCI corps now have an advantage in rehearsal time which enables them to tackle more demanding visual shows. Yes, this is one possible path forward. Weekend only corps need to choose their challenges carefully. They also need to consider how to ramp up demand over the course of the season so that the corps does challenging things in September, but is still presentable in July. Thanks for recognizing that. However, I doubt DCA will make their product different from DCI. They have had many opportunities to differentiate themselves over the years, but they have chosen to follow DCI in everything from drill demand to amplification/electronics. Given all that, I think we would be more likely to see DCA corps evolve beyond the weekend-only mode, rather than backpedal in design or equipment.

So is it safe to say that what we have now is better than NOTHING at all?

I was there for both the competition and the entertainment. I found plenty of both. I would not draw conclusions about interest in the competition based on whether people stay for the score announcements. Scores are usually available online as soon as they are announced.

Hm. I wasn't aware the Blue Knights had conducted an audition camp among the alleged "Sphere Being Alliance," which the Blue Avians are supposedly members of. Now that I think about it, we've all probably seen a small-scale representation of what the Sphere Being Alliance looks like. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4GICgbiG0N4/UgYxLqX2NVI/AAAAAAAAC7U/dXa62konW_Q/s1600/IMG_0048.JPG

The young people of this country (and many instructors/directors) would have been tired of the military organizations, and the way they ran drum corps a L---O---N---G time ago. This website would be: DRUM CORPSE PLANET

The important thing is that Lee identified a growing problem. Sure, he might believe the cause is something different from what others believe, but he's still identifying an issue and fostering discussion. I think it's unfortunate that so many folks decided to kill the messenger and not the message, but I'm not surprised. DCA does have problems. Maybe they are Bucs' fault, but most likely they aren't. They are still major problems. I do believe that fostering a competitive environment is essential, and an important part of DCA's long term health, but it has to be done without handicapping one particular corps.

Excuse me for offering some "general" observations, but I just don't know enough about DCA to get too specific. That said - There appears from afar to be two issues. First is the perception of DCA as "DCI-lite," and second is the actual structure/governance of DCA. From what's been reported, the age of marchers in DCA groups has been steadily dropping. That's good! Younger members = longer members. Nothing wrong with that. I would, however, much rather see DCA corps playing to their strengths, and that really is the fact that you have amazing musicians that have been doing their thing for far longer than the DCI kids. DCI trumps DCA on pure athletic ability, and that's to be expected - these are kids who do it every day. (I'm not tarring every corps with the same brush here - it's just the general trend.) But DCA really could trump even DCI on the music side of the equation, especially if the DCI "how many tempos/transitions can we fit into 11 minutes" is relaxed. Anyways, like I said, I'm speaking to the general drift here. Second, DCA is the only all-age corps game in town, but they are so geographically restricted that by structure alone it cuts off a huge number of former MM's. I get it - DCA The Circuit is not a full time operation. But it's probably time to have the discussion - maybe they should be. For all the Renegades brought to DCA, the most important was probably tapping into a massive pool of corps alumni in California, which you may have noticed is riddled with junior corps, churning out former members every single year. Maybe DCA should be networking like crazy, looking for the next Lee Rudnicki (Renegades) or Chris Green (Carolina Gold, Frontier) to strategically assist getting Western corps off the ground. With enough corps at some point, maybe even create a DCA Western Championship that runs the same weekend. So what if you get two national champions? You save corps cross-country travel costs in the short run that will help them develop in the long run. Or maybe, if we go full "free market" here for a bit, those western powers-that-be ought to consider their own circuit with their own champion. Healthy competition might bring out the best in everyone. Anyways, sorry for the parachute-in comments. Just some general thoughts from halfway to either coast... Mike

Even the Mexicans can't see over those platforms.

I am THRILLED by both the Pitts announcement and the move back to King instruments. 2 very strong moves by Phantom that have great potential to bring back more of the Regiment identity that I for one have missed dreadfully since 2008 (apart from Elsa's in the Juliet show). Pitts has lived and breathed some of Phantom's greatest works since the 90s and understands what Regiment does best. From all accounts, he's young, talented, and will have "big boy" talented members to arrange for. And, this could be a very long term solution. Thanks for making both of these overdue changes!!! I'm excited again like I haven't been since JD left... And now, how to get Rennick, Jamie & Adam back.... (evil grin) And yes, I don't think it's possible, but one can dream... Harvey

I am beginning to sound like a homer, but Bluecoats 2014 Hymn of Acxiom and 2015 Woods.

Also, and really importantly. Unlike a lot of people tied to Regiment. Will Pitts is REALLY good at shaking hands, making friends, and generally not being one of those "inside looking out" types you see a lot of at Regiment. He is a good face for the organization that people WANT to reward and WANT to like.

I would love to see the Yokohama Inspires return someday. I know it's a huge expense for them to do so... but it would certainly be nice. Such a great corps!!!

Genius! I'm gonna go out on a limb and pick "Somebody else" in 11th performing in exhibition after all finalist corps have performed.

LMAO... after I left corps my wife and I went on a group bus trip to VT (about 10 hour drive). Bus left at 6:30am and by 6:32am I was OUT....... Later people around me asked how I could go to sleep that quick on a moving bus. Answer of course was corps training as bunch of trips we caught the bus around 1AM and for two nights the only place to sleep was your bus seat. Brother-in-law and his family live in Wake Forest, wish I could sleep thru THAT trip.... *ugh*.. but I have to drive the car....

Will the horns they play really help if the show concept continues in the same manner as the past couple of years?

To honor Spirit of Atlanta's upcoming 40th anniversary, the University of Georgia Redcoat Band played a Spirit tribute show yesterday. Some great familiar arrangements here: http://youtu.be/g6GMMkPOLDE

Lol. You're entitled. I thought so too. I still think Crown and Cadets got snubbed by the judges. Top 4 corps should have been very close and Crown should have won. Incoming Cappybombs five four three two one 😷🙈🙉