Keith Laubhan

Agreed... top to bottom, finals was a real treat this year.

Haha... I was in the pit, so I never did retreat... I take it they're not ones to be regimented in retreat? :)

BD will relax their uniform etiquette to field the most profanity laced performance in DCI's history. :P

Wow... that's a pretty stacked percussion staff. I wonder what this is going to mean for the Scouts.

How so? Are you more qualified to make that detirmination than the judges that were there on finals night? Even the individual judges on the field? Or is it that you personally enjoyed Crown's show more? I'm not trying to be combative... all I'm saying is that it's pretty easy for anyone to say how it "should've been" from the bleachers. In the bleachers, you're not tied to the criteria on the sheets, and you're free to let your emotional involvement in the production color your perception of the execution of the show. I'm not saying that Crown didn't have agreat show, and I'm not saying that Crown didn't win over the majority of the crowd's hearts. I'm saying that you're going to have a hard time convinving me (for whatever that's worth) that your analysis of the programs is more informed than the cumulative analysis of the folks hand picked to adjudicate finals... that's all.

Haha... *makes note*

That reminds me— next pay check, I'll need to pick up the Classic Countdown DVD bundle.

Thanks for the reply. I agree that lots of media is nice, being such an audio/video activity.

I'm sure Constanza has it out for Crown... or maybe he was paid off by Blue Knights? Maybe it's a vast DCI conspiracy, with orders coming from the top, in retaliation to Crown's offset plumes from the last few years! Or maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, that both Crown and Blue Knights had really good colorguards, both with their strengths, and that a well trained and respected judge, charged with assigning a number to a subjective activity, put one group barely above the other. Crazy, I know, but it just might be that. I mean, it's not like BK has a slouch of a guard program, either.

I've been able to drag and drop the file icons directly into my iTunes library through Windows. I agree that it would be more convenient to have them as MP3s instead of WMAs... I believe it was originally set up that way for permissions verification. As far as I know, content authors can have a lot more control of their works through WMA than MP3. I'm not sure if they still verify permissions on the downloaded files, though. I don't think they do anymore.

A million people will have a million different opinions on what Crown did better than BK, and the other way around, as well. That's the nature of this game. What Crown did in terms of generating audience response, BK did in bringing something unique and challenging to the field. What Crown's guard did with equipment, BK's entire corps did with movement. BK's front ensemble accomplishments were similar to Crown's brass accomplishments, etc... I think it was a deservingly close race between the two groups, and I have a lot more faith in the finals judges than I do individuals of drum corps fandom. Each of them are in the top of their captions, have received a lot of training and experience on their sheets, and almost all of them are in a far better physical location to judge their assignments than those of us in the stands. These are the criteria that all of the corps have agreed to participate under. I believe that often, even the most educated drum corps fans forget that 'crowd appeal' doesn't equal 'effect,' and it doesn't (and shouldn't, IMO) give a boost to other captions. I'm think it's unfortunate that there are so many people so quick to say that Crown got 'jobbed,' when it's a lot more constructive to celebrate their accomplishments, as well as the accomplishments of their competitors, especially when Carolina's members have been so classy and gracious.

iTunes easily converts the files to either MP3 or AAC, and it doesn't take that long, so I've got no problem with the current model. I'm just grateful that I can download individual shows at my convenience, and that the money goes straight to the corps.

I'm gonna have a big watch party at my apartment... here's hoping the prospect of free beer and chips will entice my non-band geek friends to check it out. :)

I thought Crown had a great show this year. It created a lot of crowd response... which is its own reward. There's something to be said about winning the hearts of the crowd. I hope they enjoyed performing it as much as I enjoyed watching it.

I enjoyed both shows, but I do remember thinking that Madison felt like SCV doing their best Scouts impression. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it didn't feel like a Madison show. Not sure if it was just the drill design, or what. Seriously, though, I enjoyed both shows, as I did everyone in the top 12, and most everyone in semis, too.

Trying to get some insight from some of the hard core fans online— what would you like to see from a Division I corps' site that no one seems to have? Any specific features that you'd really like to see? Thanks in advance for any thoughts. :)

I'm loving the ability to see alumni/reunion corps each year at championships. Hopefully this will continue for years and years. It's always good to remind ourselves where we came from, and as we introduce new fans, show them how it used to be too.

It would be stellar if a well-produced DVD set were to come out earlier than past years, too. I don't know if I can make it to Novemer without exploding. :)

Blue Knights popularity throughout the course of their tour intrigued me. While on tour, they were very well reviewed through the Southwest, Pacific Coast, through Denver and into Texas, all areas that the corps gets the vast majority of their recruiting from. Once they left these geographic regions, their reviews became decidedly more mixed. Now, these geographic locations seem to make sense for the Blue Knights, as they are both closer to Colorado geographically and culturally similar. My question— do other corps experience this phenomenon, and if so, are there any corps that seem to be more appreciated in geographic regions that don't necessarily seem logical?

Things like mandating programming and show design is precisely why the DCI charter members wanted to get the #### out of the VFW environment. Even if I thought those were good ideas, I can't imagine them getting implemented in these times. I'm not sure I understand #1.... could you re-explain?

We don't need to pick a fight... we just know that BK's evil spirits will exact their revenge on you in the middle of the night... ^0^

I'm glad you guys like it... I was a little concerned when I was designing it because it ended up so different than my original ideas for it. I was under the gun to get it finished, so I threw the Piano Concerto up on iTunes, closed my eyes for a few minutes, and then put it together. I've been really surprised at the nice response it's recieved. I'd check the bknights.org website regularly. I don't think it's in the online store yet, but I would think that it'll be up eventually. Hopefully they'll also get the hats I designed in there, too. We has Zephyr manufacture them, and they turned out great... a very popular item. Now that my souvie plugging is over, I'll just say that I'm glad to hear nice comments about this year's BK show. I know it's not a show for everyone and it's not the most easily accessed show, but being so close to the organization, I can tell you that they didn't perform strictly for the judges as has been suggested. Rather, they wanted to take the audience somewhere that they don't normally go. I think they did something very unique, risky, and challenging, and I'm unbelievably thrilled that they got the competitive reward in addition to the pride that the members had in that show and their performances. Good for them, and I hope BK's artistic identity continues to take audiences into strange, uncomfortable, and under-examined areas.

Cavies' stretching box, Phantom's pentigram, BD's cross (though it would've been more effective just happening once), Vanguard's exit, and BK's box/triangle inversion thing... Crown had a lot of effective drill, too, but for some reason I can't seem to remember a specific instance that stands out in my head.

The thing that I've found striking over the past few years with Phantom is their excellent use of color. Being a graphic designer, I really appreciate it when all colors, at all times, complement each other. I thought 05's color schemes were beautiful, tastefull, and dead on in communicating what they wanted. Absolutely gorgeous, from the costumes, to the props, to the flags. This year looks to be much of the same. Good for them. For the first time in a long time, I really liked BKs guard costumes, too. The last time I've really dug what they've been wearing was the 2000 season, but this years worked with the show concept, as well as the corps proper uniforms. I also really liked Cavie's costumes this year. They reminded me a lot of the 1995 uniforms in a lot of respects, which is good. Probably the best look they've had since then. The worst, in my eyes, were Vanguard's. As much as I liked their show, and the corps in general, I thought their uniforms were the antithesis of the perpetual movement concept. To me, they should have worn something sleek, fast, and most importantly dynamic. Instead, they had awkward color blocking that didn't seem to suggest anything that the show was about. Something along the lines of their 2000 or 2002 would have been more appropriate, though not perfect.

All and all, I love the DVDs that DCI has been producing of late. The production is high quality, you get tons of features for the top six, and I love the convenience of not having to fast forward or rewind constantly if I've got a craving for a certain corps... I've worn through a lot of VHS tapes doing that. My only beef is it sometimes seems like the video compression can be a little too high at times. I'm not a videophile, but I defintely hate it when you get the image distortion on the screen. It seems to be better the last couple year than the prior couple. I can't wait for when they start putting these onto Blue-ray discs... can you imagine the video quality and flexibiliy they would be able to give us on such a high format disc?