FTNK

Well, that was certainly a unique and entertaining approach to a show review!

BD also hasn't competed in a day or two...

I would argue that 2007 was sortof "old school;" the music was very much in the vein of 2000 and the drill was right out of 1998. It was like one of those older shows, just with one new thing (the narration) layered on top of it.

Why, thank you very much. I hope that I get to see a bunch more shows in person this season and can write reviews for them as well.

Eager to see how BK, Coats and Troopers compare to everyone else. Not gonna make a prediction

Possibly when executing judges are put in, if Cadets don't clean fast enough. I do think Cadets will be ahead at the end.

My full photo gallery of the event HERE

I went to the show at Baldwin High School with my Mom last night. For starters, the high school has been totally rebuilt and there is a brand new turf field. Parking is still a nightmare and we had a horrible time trying to find the off-site parking lot. Overall it was a great show in a great stadium, and a wonderful drum corps experience. I'm going to include some comments from Mom in my reviews, since she went to Finals every year for three years and definitely knows what she's talking about, while still representing more of a "casual fan" rather than "expert" perspective. Capital Regiment: I was a bit worried about seeing my old corps (one of them) coming back after what happened in 2006 and being inactive for two years. That said, I was pleasantly surprised. For the first show of the year (which last night was for Cap Reg) they performed fairly well. They had a full drumline, about 40 horns, and only five or six guard. The show opened with electronic storm sound effects and a build to a big loud hit. Generally, the fast and loud stuff was good; the slower/more subtle parts of the show, which are always harder, had a lot of clarity and ensemble issues. Still, for the first show of a new Open Class corps, it was not a trainwreck. Also of note is that Capital has a brand new equipment truck. I think if all the off-field stuff goes well this year, and the kids have a good time, Capital can build into a serious contender in Open Class within a few years. Colts: I got caught in the tunnel trying to get back to my seats, so I couldn’t see very well. However, from what I could see, they have a lot of work to do in terms of clarifying and solidifying their drill. Mom said their drill was very “fuzzy” and that a couple tubas almost collided. Musically, the show was DOMINATED by overbearing bass from the synthesizer. In addition, the wave sounds are way too much. Do we really need poor-sounding wave sound effects coming up again and again to remind us that this is a nautically themed show? Boston Crusaders: The new corps uniforms are great; the simplicity of the white looks much better than the silver they had before. It’s “old school” but also crisp and powerful. The guard uniforms…eesh. Too revealing and not in a good way; they look kinda trashy. Anyway, the show opens with a bunch of synthesized sitar sounds, which I wasn’t 100% on board about. Most of the show is pretty excellent musically; pit features etc. pull motives from Bacchanale and this give the show a strong sense of unity. Brass has a strong, aggressive sound. The corps marches well and does some pretty challenging drill. However, the guard work and show theme is problematic. Having a scantily clad guard girl pull a hornline member out of the drill and “seduce” him, and pulling him down on top of her as she lies on the turf, then leaving him for another guy, was…too much. It was over the top, distasteful and inappropriate. Mom agreed; she was not a fan of the product. Also, dancing around with the giant apple prop was cheesy and silly-looking. The show, from a visual and music perspective, is much like last year’s production: very straightforward, aggressive, classic drum corps. Glassmen: The new uniforms are interesting. They certainly are a distinctive look. When the pit came out to set up, my Mom said they looked horrible. However, in practice, with the full hornline out there marching, they look crisp and distinctive. She said they were very effective in that context. The show is much more subtle and understated than Boston’s, and I think I liked it more. It was definitely the distinctive Glassmen style. The guard uniforms were a rather eclectic mix of different fabrics and gold patches, which were sortof awkward looking. The repeated synth chords, which were waaaay too loud at Annapolis, were better here. The descending synth sound that leads into a brass entrance was sortof off tonight; the timing was just not quite right for the effect. The only synth part was in the drum feature, when there is a sound I can only describe as “bow-bow-bow-bow-bow-bow.” It is a harsh, electronic tone, like something from a techno track. That is not a sound I ever want to hear in drum corps. It does, however, lead into the drum feature fairly well. Overall, I enjoyed Glassmen a lot, and so did the crowd. Carolina Crown: The show starts with the lovely Promise of Living “warm-up,” and builds to an impressive climax before organically dissolving into the percussion. It is highly effective. Sensemaya is, to quote the Doyle Gammill “bad judge tape,” a “wild chart, isn’t it?” There is some crazy drill and music going on there, lots of fun and fast stuff going on. The hornline sound is everything we have come to expect from Crown in the last five years. However, there were some iffy high brass entrances, especially the trumpet entrance in the ballad. From a design standpoint, the show seems to lose some focus in the middle, and the dancing is a little too much. You have to give them credit for what they are doing with the body movement, though. I feel like the Somewhere/Over the Rainbow is too much like Clair de Lune/Somewhere last year. The closing, as they build back into Promise of Living and a huge chord in the arc, is artful and musically satisfying but maybe not as exciting as a fast ending would be. They have added some electronic storm noises to the opening of the show, which distracts from the great arrangement and hornline playing. Also, there is a giant blaring electronic didgeridoo noise at one point, which is jarring and would be better with an amplified real didgeridoo. I am not a big fan of all the green on the corps uniforms, especially what I like to call “the moss,” and my Mom said she “just couldn’t get over those awful puke-green plumes.” The guard uniforms are also pretty awkward, with their combination of grass-colored green and bright pea-soup green. Some of them look like Tinkerbelle, Robin Hood or Peter Pan; maybe that’s the point. Regardless, the guard was off the chain in terms of performance (that’s a good thing) and their well-written work added a lot to the show, as Carolina Crown guards are known to do. Overall, this corps is FOR REAL; not that they haven’t been for the last few years, but they are definitely at the top level this year. I would be lying if I didn’t say they have a chance to take the title. A lot of people have said that this show has less crowd appeal than recent Crown shows, but I felt like they were the fan favorite tonight, and people really dug what they were doing. Cadets: Disclaimer: I am an alum. Maybe this makes me biased, but I also feel like it makes me even more critical of them than any other corps, as I always want them to have an amazing corps and an amazing show. Anyway, the show starts like the West Side Story movie, with the whistling and the snapping and the brass building to a fortissimo impact. The Prologue/Rumble opener was kindof a mess tonight from an ensemble perspective. Ballad is good, though I don’t know if the mello/bari duet, with the players staged 20 yards apart from each other, will ever be achievable. The mello solos were a bit weak, and I found out later that the mello soloist is dealing with a lip injury and isn’t playing the rest of the show. Cool is a good piece, but there is a synth piano break that I do not like at all. It doesn’t use any of the motives from the original piece, so it seems like a random light/smooth jazz piano improvisation stuck in the middle of Cool. It would work better if it was written to fit with the rest of the piece better. The smooth jazz feel and the synth piano sound makes it sound like the music they play (or used to play) on The Weather Channel when they do the local forecast. I hope at least some people know what I am talking about. Anyway, the Tonight closer is pretty good, and the brand-new closer drill is the kind of crazy-hard, fast, kaleidoscopic symmetrical drill we have seen from Cadets in the last few years. Overall, the show just isn’t there yet. It is definitely harder musically, in terms of exposure and ensemble cohesion as well as pure notes and tempos, than Crown’s show, and the drill is also harder—it made the rest of the corps look like slow motion. All that fast, hard drill was not necessarily more effective, however. Right now it’s just epically dirty and a hot mess; feet and technique are all over the place at points, and the brass sound is much less refined and clear than Crown. Hornline is slightly louder than Crown but with much reduction in quality. The colorguard doesn’t make you notice them with their performance level or work the way Crown’s colorguard does. The guard uniforms are also pretty blah in my opinion; I would prefer something more like the ones from 1998, 2003, or 2007 in terms of design. The 2007 guard uniforms were great because they took little elements of the corps uniform (a maroon stripe here, a gold thing here) and re-interpreted them into something that worked as a guard uniform. The skirts just don’t work that well and the tops look cheap up close. Also, the show design and guard uniforms are a bit confused: is this show about West Side Story, or about Holy Name’s 75th anniversary? Right now it seems like they are trying to do a little bit of both and ending up doing neither. While we’re on the subject of uniforms…I know I will probably be crucified for this, but I am not 100% enamored of the post-2007 corps unis. For one, they are very high-waisted, as the trend of corps uniforms are these days. The gold cumberbunds on the 2003-2006 uniforms (and pre-2003 unis I believe) had their bottoms touching the top of the iliac crest (hip bone). The new ones are 2 or 3 inches above that. Additionally, the shakos are an inch taller than the old ones. Overall it just looks a bit awkward. I also know that the new plumes are like the ones they used to have in the 80s and early 90s, but the other plumes just looked better to me. Anyway, back to the show: It could end up being great, but it really needs to be performed at the highest level. The design has issues, as others have pointed out, and the music is a bit over-arranged for my tastes. My biggest issue with the shows is the BASS. They use the MalletKat and synthesizer to play these bass parts, which are OVERWHELMING and totally overbalanced. In the beginning of Cool, the bass and marimba play together, but the bass dominates and totally covers up the marimba. Elsewhere, the bass plays with the timpani or tuba parts, so you can’t hear those instruments, just BASS. I think it could be an amp issue; the big speakers are just better at reproducing low frequencies than high frequencies, so what comes through is BASS BASS BASS. It makes things sound muddy, and when it is added to brass chords (like at the end of the show) it ruins the purity of the sound. When I saw them rehearsing at Norwin, the bass was literally making the bleachers rattle. Overall, I think Crown may have been the best corps tonight. Cadets could be a great corps with a great show, but there is a long way to go. Difficulty is helping Cadets stay marginally ahead right now. I think the addition of execution judges will help Crown and hurt Cadets. It’s all going to come down to how much Cadets can refine their show and improve their performance level. Both Cadets and Crown are very impressive even at this point, but Cadets have more to do. Crown did the encore and it was very well received; they sounded pretty great. Crowd dug it.

I'll post a review and pictures when I get home

I will be there too!

Very interesting--Blue Stars last in drums? I think people were expecting a lot more from them.

Thought Crown had a bunch of poor brass moments, especially the upper brass. Aaaaaand it's June. .8 is pretty much a toss-up, especially this early.

As of right now, Annapolis only has a 30% chance of rain (scattered thunderstorms) from 9-10pm.

Seriously, the show ended probably less than 2 hours ago, and we already have scores, but people are #####ing about not having full recaps? The scores for a show in Chambersburg, PA are up and available for viewing by the entire world (except maybe Iran). Stop and think about how amazing that is. I have a video to explain this phenomenon:

Doods, this show is going to be canceled if it hasn't been canceled already.

Bull. Almost all innovations in this activity--almost all innovations anywhere ever, for that matter--take things that someone else has done, or that was done in the past, and taking it to the next level or using it in a different way. Zingali's Garfield drills in the 80s built on what he had been experiment with at 27th Lancers. And there was SCV starting to do asymmetrical drill at the same time.

Plus, people wearing jackets allows them to see and be seen by other members of the same corps. Last year in Massillon, I found my old caption head because I was wearing my jacket, and an old guy stopped me to talk about my corps and how he used to live near their home base and how big of a fan he was. I consider that a good thing.

I have to agree with that assessment. It's beautiful but...no wow moments.

I thought it was more like the next day

Out of curiosity, how long was Michael Klesch the brass arranger for Cadets?

Could not have said it better.

Except that Bluecoats actually took it by .9

Can you give a description of the guard uniforms

Tekk, I believe they are at the show site...