exitmusic

Most corps lock in fuel contracts months and months and months in advance. This is a big reason why so few corps use their own buses anymore.

OK, but I'd argue that Star 1993 could hang with today's corps. (Therefore illustrating that the Cadets' lack of cleanliness is a good example of a "dirty" champion.)

OK, how about "Cadets 1993 would be like 8th in field visual today."

Yeah. Cadets 93 was a disaster. I think I revise my answer.

Was 2002 Magic a full corps? I'm thinking they may have been a little small.

Agreed, but there is no better location to get a read on actual timing and technique than from field level in the end zone. They were borderline disastrous person-to-person, but great from up top. That's a compliment to the show designers, for certain. Those years were incredibly well written. I will never forget the 2003 show in Chicago where something like 15 of them fell down and they still scored a 19.1 in field visual.

You clearly never watched from the end zone. Yikes.

2002 Cavaliers is one of the dirtiest things to be in the top 3, let alone win. Goes to show that "ensemble clarity" was what won DCI back then, not actual performance.

Also, "Adults acting like children."

We can say "throwing money at the staff" doesn't work, but there's one very solid exception -- Magic of Orlando 2002. They went from not existing to finals when the governing org threw a bunch of money at Gino, Jeff, etc.

Yes, it was the very definition of "solid." 2001 was bonkers. So many notes and so many different styles. Cadets did "what I want them to do" in 91-93, 96-01, 05, 07 (but without the terrible narration). Yes, that show was the very definition of "solid."

Oh man, I loved 2013. The finals performance was incredible. I was on the 45, about 40 rows up. It was exactly what I like in a drum corps show, but competitively it would have been state of the art in 2003. If I have a "beef" with GH or the corps, it's that what I love most about the Cadets -- the "screw it, let's do it because no one else can" or ZIG ZIG ZAG attitude -- is long, long gone, in favor of whatever it is they are deciding to do these days. I mean, I loved 2013, but why are we playing music that has been done and MAXED OUT already?! The 2001 "quote" shirt said, "Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." (Hunter S. Thompson) What happened to THAT corps?

Yeah, it's just my opinion. Not a groundbreaking concept or show. Against Crown 2013 or BD 2012, it's a distant, distant and very vanilla 3rd place. Mostly I'm sad that the Cadets used to be the ones pushing out the walls of what was possible and now they are content to keep playing the game as it existed ten years ago. They are in danger of becoming the group that everyone likes because they are "throwback."

ah, come on man... you can't look anyone here in the face and claim that the props actually ADDED anything to the show, can you? they were a bad design choice on many levels... the "two sides" concept was never actually developed anyway, and then at the end of the season they pulled the patent-pending "let's try to insert some gimmick to make up for the effect we didn't successfully program in the first place" move when they said, "welp, i guess we'll have the mellophone soloist at the end get on top of one for some reason, even though it makes no sense (as going "up" would be the... erm... THIRD direction)" the prop thing was a bad, bad case of forcing a deficient, halfbaked show concept on re-tread music. george hopkins might be a great ceo (or maybe not, but that's another discussion), but he's definitely not a great program coordinator. "good vs evil/dark vs light/side vs side" is the most played out concept in our activity, and he's gone to it twice in three years, while crown and bd are doing stuff that -- while it doesn't always work -- is at least pushing the envelope in some new way. look, i've been a big cadets fan and donor for more than 20 years, but they haven't had a "signature" concept since 2005. another year of some amateur-sounding narrator reciting passages from george's latest self-help book (2007, 2008, 2010), and i'll certainly be looking for another bandwagon to board. frankly i am worried that the 2014 production is going to be "president hero worship with music accompaniment," which has the potential to be the safest, dorkiest, bandiest thing in lucas oil history (including boa).

my experience is that drum corps guys are either (1) bartending, (2) teaching or performing music someplace, or (3) absolutely killing it in the private sector.

everything that has come out so far about this show has this cadets fan scared to death of another 2006/2008/2010. just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD do it. and i would argue that in 2013, the props DEFINITELY cost them points simply because they looked bad and hauling them around was a real drain on the performers.

Maybe not "official," but it is from a Scouts camp. Posted to the brass caption head's personal facebook page. :)

problem is... cadets haven't shown any ability to do anything innovative since, like 2005. if you keep repeating the same action and expect a different result... you're gonna have a bad time. 2011 was cute, but was not a championship show without the uniforms and the drill. other than that show, most shows since 2005 have been milquetoast and derivative of each other... or maybe of whatever self-help book george is in the middle of reading in mid-january. i am a big fan but not optimistic.

whhhhhhhhhhhhhy?

you will not find 128 kids willing to pay to spend their summers marching symmetrical drill forms at 12:5 steps and playing Ice Castles or Danny Boy. you just won't. besides, even the most well performed shows from the 70s and early 80s have glaring performance issues. horn angles? ever check those out? timing of the feet, ensemble timing... it goes on and on. kids today (even 16 year olds) are so fundamentally good at marching band that they'd have the show maxed out in 5 days and would spend the other 11 weeks on whatsapp telling their band friends how bored they were. think about this... the high school bands in texas are only allowed to rehearse for 8 hours per WEEK. that means that during a 12-week fall season, they rehearse the equivalent of about 10-12 full drum corps days. these bands achieve things that even lower scoring corps can't even dream of. it's a different universe.

Good luck getting kids interested in marching shows that are magnitudes less interesting to march than their high school shows. Any one of the top tier world corps could have any of these shows squeaky clean in a week. And I mean it. It would be so boring to do.

You just described literally every top tier world class corps.

clearly you don't know george very well. if you tell him that you think something is not good, he'll double down on it just to prove he's right, even when he isn't. i'm sure he's reading this now and thinking, "we need TWICE AS MANY STAGES now."

oh man are they even trying anymore? this has 4th place written all over it, as usual. what happened to innovating?