FTNK

Pretty sure Cadets had champ-type stuff for 05

The uprising in Les Mis takes place in 1830, ~41 years after the French Revolution. Mahler 2 would be great but Turangalila would be even greater... A fresh look at "Mass" would work well with the Holy Name...name

Once again mad scotty makes some bold statement about some #### he knows nothing about. It's pretty much all he does.

Yea, a little concerned about the rehashing.

...worst show ever

Bluecoats were awful at retreat/America, too.

Ok, the other thread was closed. I just want to share my thoughts as someone who marched a less than perfect Cadets show (2006) and actually knows what he's talking about, unlike most people. George Hopkins, and The Cadets, always treat their members like ADULTS. Treating them like adults includes being honest with them when things aren't going right in terms of design or whatever. I would much rather have that than a corps that tells its members that the show is great and everything is going as planned when it is obviously a huge lie (I have had that happen in another corps during my marching career). Basically, George knows the problems with the show, the kids know the problems with the show, and they're honest about it. It's not an insult to the members; insulting would be pretending that the show was perfect when it obviously isn't.

(As of 2006) roll all the way back and pick up the toe under 135 bpm, stay up on platform over 135. And yes, there are some technique issues this year.

They do have a lot of "blare" in their sound if you know what I mean.

To explain a few things: The music came from this webcomic, xkcd. I wondered if the music was anything. I realized that if people write random notes to represent music they usually don't write it in D-flat major, and the rhythms all made sense...so I plugged it into Finale, and sure enough, it was Never Gonna Give You Up. From there, I knew what I had to do, and arranged the music for tuba, trombone, euphonium, horn and trumpet on Finale, then just exported the Finale as a midi file. I used Windows Movie Maker to put the music with the video. In terms of the video, and the poor technique/dirty drill/dirty guardwork/no prop, the video was taken by a friend of mine at Spring Training on June 9th. I was going to sync the music's tempo with the video tempo, but I wanted to get it posted Wednesday before Qfinals caused a flood of posts on DCP.

The crowd was on their feet at the end, but the crowd also seemed ###### off that PR beat Crown.

OK, here’s my Massillon show review. My perspective: I marched 3 years of Div. I, tuba, and I am finishing up two undergrad music degrees this coming school year. Though I am not a brass player in “real life” I feel like I can evaluate hornlines pretty well, and I am pretty sure I can tell the difference between a good guard and a bad one at this point. Marching/visual was my specialty as a member. Percussion…not so much, really, but I’ll mention it if something caught my attention. I met one of my corpsmates, who played baritone for three years and marched with me in ’04-’05, at the show. The venue is really great; nice turf field, good stands. Our seats were on the Side 2 45 yard line and halfway up, which was pretty much perfect: we got a good view of nuances and individual technique as well as a lot of volume, but were still able to see the general drill forms. The seating area was packed. Troopers: We missed the show. I definitely did not skip it on purpose; my seat partner from ’05-’06 is their mello vis. tech, so I wanted to see them. But the route from the Cleveland suburbs (where I was for a bassoon lesson) to the stadium (according to the Garmin) was a tortuous series of backroads, and coming into the stadium there was quite a bit of traffic. By the time we had parked and walked to the stadium, Troop was on the field.  Luckily I’ll be at all three of the shows for Championships, so I’ll be able to see Troopers. Mandarins: There was a large crush of people getting into the stands between the shows, so we were unable to find our seats in time and had to watch Mandarins from the mostly unoccupied lower levels of the stands. Mandarins have good power for their size, and the guard has some really nice moments. The ending of the show is very nice. They’re on the lower end of the spectrum score-wise, and their youth shows in their performance level (especially visually), but they still put out a nice program. Blue Stars: We finally found our seats. And were promptly pulled out of them by the Blue Stars! The show is really clever, dynamic, and well constructed. In that way, it reminds me of Crown last year. Music is intricate and lovely throughout. The show seemed to get better, especially in terms of performance, as it went along. The standout for me was the colorguard: they have challenging, creative and engaging work throughout and are performing it very well. Of particular note is the percussion feature, where the entire (large) guard is on rifle. There is quite a bit of weapon work in this show overall, and I saw only one drop the whole show. There may have been more, but I must admit that my attention was drawn to the guard for most of the show because they are performing and selling their work so well. Looking at the recaps, their guard was 3rd overall and 2nd in “achievement,” which confirms my feelings. One musical thing that stuck out for me was that the baritones have a lot of important sections in this show, and they performed them all at least competently. The hornline’s drill is good, but their individual marching technique is a bit less than ideal. Their white pants might be the culprit, or they could just have some dirty feet; they were down half a point in visual performance to Boston. My friend summed up everyone’s feelings nicely as the Blue Stars left the field when she said, “I kinda want to see them again. Come back!” Spirit: Still not convinced about these uniforms, but they seem less objectionable this year, and the guard informs are nice. I liked Spirit’s music for the most part. Equus is quickly becoming cliché in drum corps, but I enjoyed their book. They have a strong mellophone section. As many have said, the four guard girls on the “periphery” don’t really work. In one particular part, two of them were in each endzone dancing around by themselves while the corps did something totally unrelated. Spirit doesn’t have the most engaging show this year, but it is a solid design overall, and if this corps is out of finals (which looks likely) it is a strong testament to the incredibly high level of quality in the activity these days, from top to bottom. INT: They added some stuff to their show which didn’t really make sense. There were ~8 girls in blue dresses with beauty pageant-style sashes and tiaras who came onto the field and waved for a while, then left. Also, there was narration during this. Though I am not anti-narration, I think they need to get better amps if they are going to use narration because it sounded like they were talking through a stadium PA loudspeaker, and I couldn’t understand a thing. These additions didn’t add anything to the show, and I have a hunch that even though they are a late-season addition, the girls and narration will be gone by Championships. Boston Crusaders: The comparison between Boston and Blue Stars really shoots holes in the “all the corps are the same these days” argument. What Blue Stars accomplish with nuance, subtly, and cleverness, BAC does with power and aggression. Two very different approaches, and two very different shows that are both entertaining and effective. Boston is the only corps I saw at Erie in June that was here tonight, and it was a treat to see how far the corps has come. In Erie, there seemed to be a lot of members afraid of some of the tight, fast drill moves, and their individual technique was not very well defined in the upper OR lower body, but tonight they were very solid. The show is fast, aggressive and entertaining. Also Sprach Zarathustra manages to transcend being cliché, and Burly Brawl is a treat. Also of note, Boston’s tubas were the first of the night that I felt really knew how to handle their horns. The guard isn’t as good in material or execution as Blue Stars, and I still don’t like those guard uniforms—they’re just ugly. Boston seemed obviously better than Stars tonight and the scores agreed. My friend’s comment: “Wow, they were really good.” Blue Devils: Ah, the main event—Blue Devils have been smokin’ this year, and I was eager to see them in person. I had heard rave reviews of their show all summer, but wasn’t exactly blown away by what I saw on the Fan Network broadcasts. I figured that the show was one that was much better in person, and IT IS. First, BD’s uniforms this year: The white plumes, white stripes on the pants and sleeves, white jacket accent panel and “leg capes/ half skirts” combine for a unique, classy, and simply ###### look. I don’t have any problems with the leg capes/leg skirts at all, they’re pretty awesome. The guard is a little harder to get on board with. My friend was pretty weirded out by the lovely combination of lavender and neon orange, which brought up memories of the half navy blue, half neon green jackets Capital Regiment’s guard wore in 2004. However, they do add a lot of color and contrast to the show, and overall they just work. The show itself: clever, nuanced, entertaining. They have effectively blurred the line between “corps proper” (horns and drums) and colorguard, with different horn players coming out of the drill to act and do a tightrope-walking routine on the yardlines. The long plastic poles (supposed to be those poles tightrope walkers use to keep their balance) are used to great effect by both the guard and hornline. At one point, the hornline carries them vertically (they’re very long, so they stick up and create a cool effect) while crabstepping, then hands them off to the guard and starts playing before you realize they’re not holding them anymore. At any given time, there are a couple really neat and creative things happening in this show. The idea of having individual horn players running around between sets is brilliant, you’re drawn into seeing how the drill will move to meet them and this adds a lot of interest to the visual program. The drill, while not Cadets-style crazy-fast-awesome, is much better than recent Blue Devils shows in terms of difficulty. As usual, this corps marches like they were born to do it—everyone understands the technique and executes it at the highest level. Though I am not a percussionist, I love their drum feature, which integrates a mic’d drumset in the pit. They trade off battery-drumset back and forth, and it’s very cool to have that different timbre and texture that the set provides. I don’t think their horn book is equal to Cadets, Phantom Regiment, Crown or SCV in term of complexity and difficulty, but it is decidedly satisfying, and definitely has more content than The Cavaliers. The Sweeney Todd music is a bit odd, but it works fairly well. In terms of brass performance, there were a few moments where the fast triplet ostinatos didn’t line up and the sound got a bit thin and top-heavy at times, but BD has emphasized the upper voices for a long time, so this might be a conscious decision. Overall this is an excellent hornline. The show concept is great, the corps in all sections is great. My comment was that this show is kindof like Cadets 2006 but with a guard that is 100 times better, and my friend said “their guard can wear whatever they want if they perform like that.” Santa Clara Vanguard: Tough to follow BD. Their opener guard uniforms couldn’t be more different from Devils’: brown business suits. This show is a visual treat, and Pete Weber’s drill is as good as it gets. I love the opener (John Adams’ The Chairman Dances) with its subtle rhythmic interplay and the use of muted trumpets. Very intricate, very complex, performed well for the most part. The long buildup pays off with a great first impact point. As you can tell, I am pretty in love with this opener; long stretches of continuous marching and playing with engaging, intricate music and fantastic drill. Unfortunately, the show design (and the corps’ execution of it) seems to decline as it goes along. The second piece, the “body” section, is neat in its use of interesting percussion, rhythms, and exotic scales, but it can’t live up to the intensity and quality of what precedes it. My biggest gripe with the second number is that at the climax of the piece, the corps stands in a block and does the oh-so-cliché “jam-out section” park and play, where I feel some intense, fast moving drill would better suit the music. I feel like the music and the visual intensity should climax together, instead of the visual interest stopping while the corps “rocks out” (SCV is certainly not the only corps guilty of this). Also during this section, a tuba player puts down his horn, picks up someone else and flips them over. I don’t really know what that is about, and it looks silly. The closer is pretty good, but just not as intense and engaging as it should be. The guard performs fairly well, but the costuming choices are a little odd (I much prefer last year’s guard outfits, though the bright blue sparkly dresses in the closer are kindof cool), and I don’t really get the weird jumping around they do in the opener. Nothing really stands out in the guard’s work, unlike Blue Devils. In terms of brass performance, this is a very complex book, and there are some performance issues, though they sounded a lot better than the Allentown video (which had several out of tune moments, stick-outs and harsh sounds). Marching was much the same, some issues with a very ambitious drill. Santa Clara may not be on the level of the top corps this year, but SCV fans need not worry. This show, in terms of repertoire, drill, and overall style, is vintage Vanguard (the specific vintage of this bottle would be somewhere between 1997 and 2003), and though I realize my review might seem like a huge slam, I really do like them and their show this year. Bluecoats: This is Bloo’s home show, and you could tell. The crowd was fired up, and the corps seemed to feed off of that energy. It was a special treat seeing my former classmate and corps-mate Mike Huebner on the main podium, conducting the entire show. ‘Coats show is a straight-ahead boxing story and as such is very accessible and fan-friendly. Their show, like many this year, employs a “running start,” with the hornline’s drill forming squares around the “boxers” as they are announced by a narrator before the show starts, and the first big impact point coming right after the “…proud to present: The Bluecoats!” from the stadium announcer. About that narration: I know narration is controversial and all, but it greatly enhances this show, with the narrator adding to what the corps is depicting with a boxing announcer play-by-play and a boxing trainer impression. During the “training montage” (to quote South Park, “…you need a mon-tage!”) section, the drumline is featured in pretty creative ways, with the basses simulating the rhythmic thumping of a speedbag and the snares drumming on the metal posts that hold up actual speed bags that the colorguard uses as props. The Simon and Garfunkel The Boxer hornline feature has been getting a lot of internet hype, and I was not so sure about it, but I think I have to get on the bandwagon now. Despite everyone talking about it, I was not prepared for the amount of volume they produce parked in a block on the front sideline. However, my favorite part of the whole show is the closer. Rocky—the original 1976 one—is a great movie, and the last part of the movie is one of my favorites. The sense of anticipation created by the combination of the narrator introducing the “main event” and that tension-laiden music from Rocky is wonderful. For me, probably the most emotionally impactful moment in drum corps this year is after the drum line has a small feature and then the corps comes in with a big fanfare and begins streaming from right to left across the field. That’s probably the most emotionally effective moment for me because the music they use is from one of my favorite movie moments of all time (after the final bell, when Rocky has accomplished his goal and gone the distance against Apollo Creed, and the crowd rushes into the ring and the reporter says, “Rocky, you went the distance, you went the 15 rounds! How do you feel (I fhul aight…Adriaan!) What were you thinking when you came out, when the bell rang to start the final round (uhh ADRIAAAAN).” Anyway, Bluecoats’ visual design is not on the level of the top corps, and the colorguard didn’t really have any memorable moments, but the corps marches and plays at a very high level and their show is probably one of my favorites this year, which is very special considering my usual feelings towards the Bluecoats. I felt like they definitely were better than SCV tonight, and they tied despite SCV being ahead at Allentown. Final thoughts: To quote Apollo Creed, “Ain’t gon’ be no rematch.” Afterward, I saw Derek Gipson, my former brass caption head, who is teaching at SCV, and we talked about Capital Regiment and our experiences as Cadets. Then I found my seat partner from ’05-’06, who is a vis. tech at Troopers, and gave her section Gatorade and peanut butter Rice Krispie treats. We yammered away like old times until Troop’s buses starting pulling out and she had to run to not be left behind, then I went and visited Mike Huebner at Bluecoats. Overall, the combination of friends, corps lineup, late-season quality, excellent weather and a great stadium made this The Best Drum Corps Show I’ve Ever Been To.

I stopped by The Cadets rehearsal today and saw that they added some incredible new stuff to the show. Check it out!: http://flickr.com/photos/tarnik101/2740770463/

After the last note in 06-GRAB TURN STOP DOWN STOP I'm done. And though I thought about the decision a lot about it the next few months, that was the last thing I ever did on the field with a drum corps.

BD has a ton of cool visuals in just about ever part of their show.

It's not like the entire show was like that--it was a fun, lighthearted, "free-form" section of the show, they weren't marching at that point. Your criticism is like knocking the soloist in Madison '75 for bad posture (leaning back) when he's screaming like a ######. Wrong. Just wrong. Don't make statements about something you know nothing about (what modern drum corps staffs teach).

In BD's opener, I really like when half the block runs and fills in the rest of the block sequentially.

I just got back 45 minutes ago (had to drive home to Pittsburgh, and the route my GPS gave me had no major highways) and I will write a review soon, but let me just say now that this was THE BEST DRUM CORPS SHOW I'VE EVER BEEN TO. Brian--saw Rachel at the Coats truck and you walking to visit the corps as I was leaving. Hello former assistant corps director.

I'm pretty sure several companies, including King, make Bb herald trumpets.

I heard mention of "herald trumpets" in PR's show and thought it referred to the musical fanfare at the start of the show, but DCI.org has a nice big picture of Phantom's trumpets using actual "herald trumpets," with yard-long bells and purple and gold banners hanging off them. It's pretty great. How awesome would it be to do basics with those things? Must be a little bell-heavy! Anyway, when did they add these unique instruments which add just another level of over-the-top-ness to their great show? Looking at pics from Atlanta it seems they were not used then.

I went to Qfinals in the theater last year, near Seattle. With a very West Coast crowd, there was a lot of crowd response for those corps in particular.

Wow Mike, are you drunk tonight?

It's hard to agree or disagree without examples.

lol'd at anti-Cadets venom

I think portraying the actual libretto of Symphony Fantastique with the guard and stuff (Bohemian artist, unrequited love, sexual tension, drug-induced hallucinations) would work very well in the modern creative climate.