NakedEye

Hey HEY..don't be dissin' Magic's brocade tuxedos! They may have been ill-fitting (and smelly), but when the corps was doing their on-the-edge bizarro shows, this look worked and was totally distinctive. I've always felt switching to the off-the-rack, bland, quasi-military style after their rebirth was partly responsible for them having trouble finding an identity or theme that worked cohesively again. This photo was from '98 where the only bright areas of gold on the jacket and "hood ornament" spike were covered with....more purple. The effect from the stands was something akin to a bruise.

I've always thought the shape between the c and i resembles a whistle as well. That type of thing is not used anymore, but relates to the the whole "drum major" idea. I saw the bugle right away, but of course, I design logos for a living..lol

This has been done: Lone Star '94. Mean Green Mother was in there, as was Suddenly Seymour, The Meek Shall Inherit, Don't Feed the Plant, a bit of the Main Theme at the the end and several snippets of other songs from the show here and there. It was fun and we did well - 5th place. We did Beauty and the Beast the previous year. This was before the Broadway version, but much of the music is the same. I don't remember huge copyright issues, but perhaps things have changed since then.

Clermont IS in the Orlando metro area. It is a suburb that is just outside the city limits. You can't call that "not local." Same thing with Kissimmee, where their mailing address is now.

Just a few thoughts.. I have never liked a Capital Regiment show ever, but I really enjoyed this one. They finally seemed to not be playing it so safe, and had a personality. The guy who caught the frisbee had a priceless expression. He looked thrilled to have grabbed it with all that wind. Blue Stars - They obviously play well, and welcome back, etc., but this show was the only one of the night I really disliked. That narration killed me. Glassmen - great, great ideas in this. That deaf thing is timeless. Madison - some fun stuff, but WOW dirty. Early on someone completely missed a form. Is the drill really that much harder than everyone else? I was quite surprised. Blue Knights - I was thinking this would be a nap, but instead I loved it...in spite of Delucia harping on how the music was hard to listen to. They were just so intense, and the featured guard girl had a really interesting persona. Wish the flags were not so "stripey", though. Didnt' seem to fit. SCV - Really liked the opener and closer. Middle part, not as much. The ending is fantastic..what a creative drill. If anyone can explain the idea behind the guard costumes, however, please elaborate. I was very lost on that, especially the boxer shorts look that made all the guys look short and wide. Crown - I want them to get their personality back. This was very well done, but wrapped in foam padding for safety. It IS ok to have some fun again. Bluecoats - their flags seemed much longer than everyone else's, which perhaps contributed to the trouble they were having tonight. Other than that and the camera totally missing the big "elastic" moment, I can't remember a thing. Next year, take this quality and then add some more thought behind it. They may fall to SCV. Cadets - well I just love this. It is crazy and screwed up, and some of it bombs, but the parts that work are just sensational. I would have liked to have seen a wider shot of the way Alice crosses the field in the ballad..that is such an interesting way to use the space. I wonder how much better the whole package would have been if they had not tried to tie it to 2005, but instead just did a pyschedelic "Alice." The time spent on getting the point across about the schoolgirls, princess hat, door, etc., could have gone into this story. The ironic thing is that linking it to a past show counteracts the idea that it is a new and innovative idea. However, it was still just so much fun and they seem to have really stepped up the execution from a few weeks ago. Phantom - just beautiful. Not cutting edge or out of the box, but classically presented like only they can do. What a sound. The story seems clear up until the end where the girl goes from being dead to being resurrected SO fast that it seems to lose dramatic impact. There is not time for mourning or anything because...hey..I'M BACK! I love how the costumes and flags are period themed, like they did last year with the 20's look. I would not want to be throwing sixes with a sabre with a devil mask on my face the whole show. It seems unlikely they will win, but they have the most designed-in emotion of any of the top three. The question is..can they max it out and how far will it take them. BD - enjoyable but seems a step down in the thought process sweeptstakes. Cavs have an original idea maximized, and this is largely an interpretation of someone else's story and music. I swear the guard is paid professionals. They way they carry themselves seems like they are 10 years older than the rest. Cavs - so original without being in the realm of craziness. Clever, clever, clever. Guard had a rough night, but their writing is the best this year..even better than the usually best BD. The music is memorable for sure. Not sure that ending with a repeat of the gimmick quite has the firepower. The new twist of the drummer..AND DRUM coming down the line is a fun twist..but still......some of the "big finish" moment is not happening. Still think it will win.

LOL thank you for that very accurate analysis. I'm not sure how an introductory sentence, blended, non-language tones in the ballad, and a few snippets of banter between drum breaks can be labeled as some sort of avalanche of unjudgeable material. My guess is there really is some head scratching with the judges, mainly about the visual staging in the percusssion section. It is not quite drill, but it is motion. Comparing it generally to any of the competition is not easy, as other corps are marching in formation rather than launching themselves off tilted benches. Yet it IS achievement, so how do you evaluate it?

The 1993 Sky Ryders left behind their crowd pleasing style for an esoteric show of modern wind music that left many people scratching their heads. They even had a screenprinted graphic overlay velcroed over their cadet-style uniforms. Therefore it was original poster RUSTY who is actually responsible for the death of drum corps, and not George Hopkins. :sshh:

The videos ONLY add to increased interest and excitement about the activity. The tight controls that have been in place for decades on intellectual property will evolve with the times. It may not always be the ideal situation for artists, and I say this as a working artist, BUT it is too much of a tidal wave, coming from too many directions, to be totally contained. People have been sneaking cameras into DCI events forever, they are now just sharing what they captured a bit more openly. As I see it, it is the new reality of the world and technology, BUT the fact that people want to share and exchange information and creativity only benefits everyone. It sparks new ideas and awareness. As long as people credit the performers or creators, things are ok. If someone tries to appropriate the work as their own, then you have a problem, and you deal with that individually. Personally, I am getting a huge kick out of seeing even grainy and jumpy clips of incomplete shows (with girls making giggly comments in the background). It makes me more eager to rush out to some shows!

I like the color, but the shape and height keep making me think....Marge Simpson!

I love it! Very fun and a VERY good fit for the Crossmen. The radio section is extremely clever, if a bit rough at this point. By the end of the season I bet they will be selling it to the point that it is a huge crowd favorite.

From another pic I saw....it looks like they placed chains on the rifle and then sprayed paint over them to leave the outlines on the wood. So you have hoods AND chains.

Seem to be the Revolution uniform, reversed, with different colors and the "tab" moved down. Those three bars were one distinctive touch the corps had. Not sure why they couldn't incorporate that idea into the new design.

1992 is also an excellent show for improving fitness, which I can attest to. When I finish doing weights at the gym, I set the elliptical machine to 11 minutes, push 'play' on the iPod and try to keep pace with that monster. Richard Simmons wishes he had designed such a workout...lol

But to try to argue that it is easily accessible is foolish (in my opinion). There's a difference between a good/entertaining show, and one that is easily accessible (easily accessible shows are not always inherently entertaining), Cadets was a very good, but not easily accessible show. Well, I didn't say it was easily accessible, I said that the inclusion of those aspects of the show that were identifiable showed that there was an attempt to mix some supposedly fan-friendly, pop-culture icons into the soup of an original and at times daring production. They could have gone WAY out there like the Cavaliers opening dance thing in '97, or Star's triangles and bare poles, but they didn't. Whether or not everyone got it or not isn't the point. The fact that they put those anchors into the show at all shows the influence of the past five years of shows, I think.

I don't think they abandoned crowd appeal at all. There is more than one crowd in the audience, and they started to target the fans that they had built up through all the years of unusual and boundary-pushing shows again. A lot of those were left in the cold the past few seasons when they tried an approach which has been executed better by other corps. I used to always look forward to Cadets, but after 2004, they had almost lost me completely. It is similar to Star of Indiana's ill-fated 1992 Patriotic show, which was supposed to appeal to the masses and didn't quite work. When they went offbeat again, as they had done the few years before that, some of us cheered loudly. Basically, you have to be true to yourself and your identity, even if some people hate it. When you try to be someone else, people pick up on it fast. Now with that said, I think you can see some of what they learned from 2001-2004 in the 2005 show. Despite some calling it too out-there and inaccessible, think about some of the elements which are included: 1. A concept centered around a TV show 2. Strong elements of Surrealism (Salvador Dali was a HUGE pop culture marketer of himself) 3. A CATHOLIC SCHOOL GIRL as the main character (not some bizarre, artsy figure) 4. The door address of 1313 Mockingbird Lane (from the Munsters) 5. Shower heads, fish, chess games in the drill 6. Kill Bill! 7. The hilarious drumspeak section (when you listen to some of the over-the-top inflections they make with their voices..especially the third pair of guys...it's very goofy and fun) 8. The girl comes out dressed as a judge at finals! So this isn't exactly "high art." But it is so well designed, integrated and surrounded by really fast movement and difficult music, that it is easy to overlook the very basic ideas that are included. Some of that may be from the sheer volume of ideas in the 10 minutes..it is a bit over-packed. Contrast this show to 1998's Stonehenge and see which one takes a lighter approach. Really the big thing that could be considered "innovative" is the very careful planning of the journey of ideas they attempted to take the audience on. It wasn't just musical changes, it was scene and emotion changes. No corps has attempted something quite like that in a long time, and the ones who did in the past never had the execution and demand to win. Taking that approach forward, it will be REALLY interesting to see what they try next year. I know I can't wait.

Wow..now THAT is an intelligent and really well-written review. You really touched on the various levels of design and thinking that go into an overall show package, and which are often rewarded by the judges, but not necessarily instantly apparent to someone viewing the show once or twice. The shows that are very successful are the ones written in levels, so that they appeal to the crowd but also contain sophisticated elements that can be supported by advanced color and music theory. As a professional designer, who deals constantly with color and message in my work, these are the things I tend to notice and appreciate when going to a show. With that in mind, a few comments related to your comments: Cavies - "I saw some attention to color but nothing that I would consider out of the ordinary. Maybe they do it so well I just take them for granted now." You ARE just taking it for granted, because their color design was again really strong, as it has been for about five years. Their "Four Corners" and "Frameworks" shows demonstrated as much perfect control with color thought as they did and still do with the musical moments you discuss. In each case a single flag design was used, colored differently to move the audience through the show. This year they took a largely similar approach, with the "skyline" motif and again very tightly controlled color...bright green for the beginning, red for the fire. Also this year they added the element of the hats to the mix, matched to the mood of the silks at the moment. I personally didn't care that much for the hats, as they seemed too "cutsey-pooh", but they sure did reinforce the design idea. Crown/7th: "A very lush and full sounding horn line is the current signature of this corps. The drum line continues to be strong and the drill design is coming along. I thought there was a good use of color in the guard" Ok on this one I disagree, and you put the pieces of why I do in your statement. Their sound was beautifully lush and full, but their colors were not. When I first heard about the "angel" theme, I was looking forward to some beautiful effects, and to me it the final product seemed lacking. Last year's show had it, but this one came up short. The creme uniforms give them a wonderfully blank background against which they can create color effect, and instead we had a series of white and creme-based flags with "fruit loop" styled halos in colors that either washed out or didn't work too well with the creme. The idea of angels being in street clothes as opposed to flowing robes was a good one, but as someone posted on here a while ago, "they take off a black shirt to reveal....another black shirt." EXACTLY. There were no surprises, and nothing to add an etherial quality to the understated costumes (screen-printed wings aside). Likewise the closing double flags. "Ah cool...these are angel wings." Except they were a clunky square shape that looked really "earthbound." Still a nice show but, oh what a few tweaks could have done for the effect. For an example of using blank uniforms + color to great effect, see Phantom. Now THAT is how to do it! And they almost always do it well. You made some really observant and spot-on comments about everyone and I appreciate the time and thought you put into it!