jthomas666

Thanks--I'll correct my review!

Here's a link to some pics from the Birmingham show. Below are some of the better ones. Southwind Seattle Cascades Music City Troopers Pacific Crest Spirit of Atlanta Mandarins Phantom Regiment Sorry, but none for Blue Knights.

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A couple of disclaimers up front: 1. This was my first show since 2008. Obviously, a lot has changed since then, most notably electronics. I may dwell on them from time to time. 2. Our seats were almost at field level. Consequently, I won’t be able to say much about the visuals. Our seats also impacted my reaction to the electronics, as most of the time we were right in front of the speakers. It’s very disconcerting when the mic-ed soloist is on the other side of the field but the sound is coming from right in front of you. 3. I took some pics, but I probably won’t be able to go through them until next week. 4. Had to leave before the Blue Knights, as my son was running out of energy. Southwind – The Guitarist OK, this show was flat out fun. They don’t have the money or talent of the upper corps, but they sold this show from start to finish. Even the prerecorded guitars worked--which frankly surprised me—it helps that they were used very judiciously. Favorite musical moment: A magnificent trombone soloist. ETA: I've been informed that the guitars were live, not recorded. Nice! Seattle Cascades – What Goes Around Just didn’t do much for me. I got the feeling that they were trying to imitate Bluecoats’ heavy use of electronics without really understanding what made the Bluecoats stuff effective. The electronics tended to overwhelm rather than enhance. Music City – Hell on Wheels: The Final Journey of Casey Jones. Another show that the corps just flat out sold. It is a testament to the energy of the show that when the familiar strains of Cohan’s “Hallelujah” drifted into the stands, I didn’t take an icepick to someone (lovely song, but it’s been played into the ground). Kind of had an early 2000s Carolina Crown feel to it—take a slightly goofy idea and dial it to eleven. Favorite musical moment: God help me, but I gotta go with Ozzy Osbourne and Crazy Train. Troopers – The New Road West This is not your father’s Troopers. I gotta admit, my initial reaction when I first saw the signposts was “WTH? Troopers are doing a Prince tribute?” The show design is somewhat reminiscent of PR’s 2010 Into the Light in the way the show migrates from one end of the field to the other. Very sophisticated use of electronics, combining sounds effects with fairly subtle musical enhancements. Aside—One of my problems with electronics Is that it adds another layer of costs to an already expensive activity. This equipment is not cheap. Southwind had a bare bones setup, but beginning with Troopers, the corps had very sophisticated setups. Shouldn’t we be trying to make it easier for an organization to field a corps? Pacific Crest – Here’s to the One’s Who Dream Played and performed well; it just didn’t leave much of an impression. A little overboard with the electronics. Favorite musical moment: Mambo! Spirit of Atlanta – Knock Stronger musically than visually. The tall feathers on the hats added an extra jaunty feel to the proceedings. Great show, the kids play with attitude and fire, but for the love of God, that is the most annoying and pretentious narration I’ve ever heard. DOORS, WE GET IT. While I like the door props, they may have a few too many—at time the field seems cluttered, particularly since the MMs and color guard unis have the same dark palette. Favorite Musical moment: Hurt PS: Spirit, for the love of God, buy a quieter generator! Mandarins – Life Rite After From the opening hit, there is no doubt these guys mean business. This is a bada** show that grabs you, stares you in the face, and dares you to look away. Dark, brooding, and above all, powerful. There are massive visual GE hits (the lightsabre rifles are spectacular) and equally massive music GE hits. They’re breathing down PR’s necks and may well pass them by Indianapolis, unless they’ve peaked too soon. Favorite musical moment: the aforementioned opening hit. I hope to be able to see this again from a better angle. Easily my favorite show of the night. Phantom Regiment – The New World Knowing we’d be leaving right afterward, we went to the top of the stands for PR. The closer has the power and passion we expect from PR. The rest of the show, not so much. There’s a lot of good technical work, I love the way that phrases from the New World Symphony are sprinkled throughout…but I’ve got no idea what the theme is. The wonky hotel luggage carts look much better in person than they have in pictures and video, but they’re still more visual clutter than visual element, which becomes painfully evident when they are trundled off to the end zone right before the final push. Visually, the “stage” in front of the pit looks great, but I can’t help but think that it could be used more effectively—it seems like a logical place for soloists, for example. The placements seem about right—though I really would not have been surprised if Mandarins had edged PR.

Going to the Birmingham show tomorrow. Taking my youngest son, who plays french horn. Looks like a pretty good lineup! Southern Knights - Pelham, AL Southwind - Mobile, AL Seattle Cascades - Seattle, WA Music City - Nashville, TN Troopers - Casper, WY Pacific Crest - Diamond Bar, CA Spirit of Atlanta - Atlanta, GA Mandarins - Sacramento, CA Phantom Regiment - Rockford, IL Blue Knights - Denver, CO

Probably part of general frustration. Shaw and Rennick were doing great work with PR, but they were both effectively driven off.

As someone vehemently opposed to the current chop n bop trend (also, get off my lawn), I'd like to see Regiment build a show around 1-2 works like they did with Rhapsody (a show that would work quite well with current visual trends). any "variations on a theme" approach would provide for a lot of flexibility in style and substance. It might never happen, but they should try to get Shaw and Rennick back, because that was a match made in drum corps heaven.

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The ride cymbals? ;) Listening on Spotify now. Me likey!

It would also smack of desperation.

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Bridgemen 1980 27th Lancers 1981 Honorable mention to 1980, which probably should have won the title. But '81 has Niner Two.

I play the 82 a LOT. As you say, the change from the previous year was night and day.

Yeah, it's a bit of a departure for Regiment, but it is flat out fun, and I particularly love the way the brass writing and percussion writing complement each other.

1996 PR In its entirety. Cadets 2005 - Ballad

I'd prefer this more than an increase. How many more people can you cram in the pit, anyway?

I'll let my wife know about the Jupiter and Yamaha--she's doing the looking, and will only buy a horn she's held in her hands--mainly because she ran across several horns where they were asking $250 and it turned out the tubing was so gunked up you couldn't blow through them. Thanks again--I'll let you know what we end up with.

1. We'd like to keep it under $400 if possible. We've found a number of used Bachs in that price range. 2. Hard to tell, but this past year his music class played recorders, and he enjoyed it a lot and was good about practicing. 3. So-so--which is one of the reasons we're looking at used. If my schedule allows, I'm going to try and take him to a DCI show later this summer. thanks!

My 11 yr old son is going to start on trumpet this fall, and we're looking for a relatively inexpensive horn . We've been looking at a used Bach TR-300. Is this a good choice for a beginner?

Don't forget the mushrooms. ;)

The Velvet Knights should reform and perform a Schwarzenneger meets Shakespeare show entitled Hasta La Verdi.

Yeah,this is kind of where I am. Guard uni is lovely and will look great on the field. Corp uni is fine in a generic way, but it just doesn't scream "Phantom".

Thanks! I'll sort out how to rip the audio soon enough. And at those prices, I went ahead and got 2008 as well.

Had to rebuild a crashed hard drive. Recovered most of it, but one of the casualties was my mp3 of On Air. Without violating site policies, does anyone know where I can get a replacement copy? I've looked for CDs, w/o any luck.