Ed Boxer

Ah, but the BIG difference is that Cavies could not perform their show without the music. It is the Cadets narration that distracts from the music and drill that is most bothersome. The show could be perforomed without the narration. And it is certainly not an innovation, its been done by bands before. I don't see it as a new direction for drum corps, I see it as another step towards turning drum corps into marching band. Do I think people will boo if they win, unfortunately, yes. But I think more people will give them polite applause. I don't see a roar of approval coming from the crowd if they win.

My predictions of the unpredictable. There will be a three way tie for 12th place at semis - there will be 14 corps in finals. Madison will not be one of them. Blue Devils, Bluecoats and PR will be in the top three. Crown and Cadets will tie for fourth. Cavaliers will be sixth. There will be a 0.8 point spread from 1st to 5th. A corp will drop a position due to a penalty. The largest ovation of the weekend will be for Anaheim! The final corps will go on for finals at 9:00 but the winner won't be permitted an encore due to noise ordinances. There will be heavy drinking Thursday night, Friday night and all day Saturday. LAX will be full of corps people by 7:00am Sunday. The most common comment of the weekend will be - "can you lean to the left or right, I can't see".

ROFL - love it! Some of the ideas would work very well. I'm just glad the Crown kept it to Dixie, and not her brother Dwight, who was gelded after losing to Dixie!

I'd have to semewhat disagree. In 2003 we stayed at a Motel 6 in Beechwood Oh that was pristine and had an excellent manager. We went back 2 years later, different manager. and it was a dump. The pool was half empty and reeked from slim water. The first room was filthy and the furniture was sticky. They switched us to another room and the sheets had blood on them. I called the Board of Health on them. It wasn't the location or the clientele, it was the manager that ruined the place. Their is no excuse of the filth we encountered. The best I've found so fair in budget is Microtel - very good luck with them in Allentown, Orlando, Tampa, and Cleveland

Allentown Sunday night – short review A few words of intro. 1. I was seated on the 45, but not seated high enough to get a good view of drill so I won't make any drill comments. 2. Its still early in the season so there were lots of phasing problems and many instances of single players sticking out. 3. My comments will be basically on overall show design and any elements that IMHO deserve attention/praise. Etc. Bridgemen - complete with two penalty flags! As expected - fun, funny and the crowd ate it up! Yeah, it was kind of sloppy but who cared - it was a blast. Pioneer - 65.025 - Nice use of Holst. Excellent contra line - wow. Weak guard. They petered out about 2/3s of the way through the show (not unusually this early in the season) Weak show design is going to leave them out of semis, again. Cascades - 69.375 - Excellent show design incorporating 3s everywhere. They clean this up by Pasadena, and they might make finals. Crossmen - 72.775 - Good brass, nice movement, but the guard seems to always be too far away. They never seem to be incorporated in the show. Its like the designer just wanted them out of the way. Blue Stars - 73.8 - The white/blue contrast uniforms don't seem to be utilized very much. IMHO, poor arrangement of Firebird. Colts - 76.525 - Very cool single flag toss over the collapsing and expanding corp. The rest seems to be a work in progress. Glassmen - 75.925 - Lets take some great music and then orchestrate all the life and excitement out of it. Very muddy brass. They are playing a ton of notes here, but unless they clean it up, this show won't make finals. Blue Knights - 79.075 - Loud, loud loud. And it seems that the sopranos only play when they are standing or sitting still - which is a lot. Blue Devils - 86.475 - As expected top heavy loud brass and simplistic drill (tons of follow the leader). This could end up 4th to 6th at finals. The design and demand just aren't there yet. Bluecoats - 84.750 - WOW - a total package that is already being clearly executed (clearly - not necessarily cleanly). I thought they easily won. The best "show" on the field. Cavaliers - 85.325 - hmmmmm.... clearly a lot of running drill and a whole lot of whole and half notes being played. I don't see much demand in the music. In fact, after the opening, I could barely recognize any of the music as Billy Joel. General comments after both nights: Nice trend - a lot more corps are using contras as melodic instruments - to great effect - loved it. And in most cases, its already being performed excellently. Put this one to rest - OK guard instructors, retire the "dance" move where the guard member rolls on their back and sticks one or two legs up in the air. It always looks like the instructor ran out of ideas: "I don't know what to do here so just roll on your back and stick a leg in the air". IMHO it has never added anything to a show. Predictions for finals - Yeah right. Madison won't make semis, Bluecoats will be in the top 3. Other than that, its too early to tell.

I know what it means to any corps member to be a member of their respective corps. My comment is simply that its not fun performing when you know people don't like the end product. Especially when people get up and leave in the middle of your performance. That no matter how much you try to do your best, the end result will never be appreciated.

Allentown Night one – short review A few words of intro. 1. I was seated on the 45, but not seated high enough to get a good view of drill so I won’t make any drill comments. 2. Its still early in the season so there were lots of phasing problems and many instances of single players sticking out. 3. My comments will be basically on overall show design and any elements that IMHO deserve attention/praise. Etc. Crossmen Extreme played the national anthem. Sorry to be harsh here, but the quality was not much better than your average high school band. In fact, I felt embarrassed for them. Reading Buccaneers – Nice show design and great to see some major movement from a DCA corps. Right now its very rough, but this could be a repeat title for Reading. Jersey Surf – 73.075 - Very hard to tell what’s going on musically right now. Nice show design and interesting background props. Can’t wait to see this later in the season. Troopers – 68.1 – WOW – what an improvement – very nice brass sound. Loved the “costume malfunction”. But what the heck was going on in the guard. I thought they should have placed above Southwind and Madison. Pacific Crest – 72.85 – Nice concept and an excellent soloist. The few bits of narration were perfectly timed and sometimes even funny. I would like to see more Vegas Showgirl costumes for the guard. Southwind – 69.750 – hmmmm….. much ado about nothing – and the show just stops. Not sure what the concept was supposed to be. Spirit from JSU – 73.750 – very rough – when they finished the only comment I had was “what?” Again not sure what is supposed to be going on here. Boston Crusaders – 77.4 – Boston seems to have created a template for their shows over the last few years. This one isn’t much different. Good Guard work. The brass was blatty tonight. Madison Scouts – 70.050 – Is this corps going to make it semis in August? Weak show design, seems to be no center to the show. Madison seems have a testosterone deficit. Carolina Crown – 83.125 - Nice sounds, but lots of phasing. The horse theme is cool. What is holding them back is a total lack of subtlety and nuance. They play at two volumes right now – mezzo forte and blast. SCV – 83.425 – subtlety and nuance in spades – beautiful scoring of the Ravel. Lots of beautiful sounds. The guard dance is weak and detracts from the mood. Phantom Regiment – 83.950 – Gorgeous sounds from the low brass in the opening. For me, the Delibes is too fast. The duet needs to flow, not saunter. The Firebird works well. Cadets – 85.70 – People actually got up in the middle of the show and left in disgust. The corps may be playing very well, but the narration is so amateurish, condescending, self-promoting, poorly written and embarrassingly enunciated – SHUT UP! One line stuck in my head – “athletes of God.” I wanted to vomit. I have never hated a show concept before - I hate this show. George – when the result of your show is people actually getting up in the middle of the performance and leaving because they hate the show, you are doing no favors to the members of the Cadets and Drum Corps in general. My heart goes out to the poor kids that have to endure the hatred this show seems to instill. People hated this show because of the narration.

I REALLY like the idea of adding in div II/III. Maybe one of each in each future countdown! What was the year East Coast Jazz had the incredible solist? I'd love to see that show in high-def and surround sound, especially for the way he bounced his sound all over the backfield.

Yeah, you can rework the numbers to make them say anything. But the most logical explanation that I can think of is that, after reviewing the votes per show for each corps, the Cadets show votes were all within 750+ votes between 1398 and 2153. If you look at the other "finalist" shows, the gap is wider: PR - 1020+ votes; SCV - 2000+; Madison - 1300+; Cavies: 1400+. I don't think it is any reflection on the Cadets or George. I think it is simply that the votes for the Cadets shows were more evenly distributed between the candidates. That said, what's with the "Classic Countdown DVD Bundle" I want Madison 95 and Cadets 87 in 5.1 surround sound!!!!!

Hmmm..... this is just ugly. The announcement said that YEA would "support" them through the transition. It did not say they would finance them through the transition. There is a HUGE difference. And I can just imagine the support they will get in San Antonio from Allentown.

First off, your whole post seems to have an emphasis on music, its performace and its adjudication. I couldn't agree more with that opinion (even though I disagree with some of your placements - I thought Bluecoats were squeaky clean Saturday night, and SCV and Cadets weren't). Music has taken a back seat to visual. And the problem with adjucation - Brass tech 10%, Percussion tech 10%. Visual - 50%. Unfortunately, visual, IMHO, is given too many points and is the root of the problem. If you get great visual scores, you can win, you can't pull a win with great brass and percussion scores. And why was the crowd on its feet at the end of PR's show - Mainly, PR's brass. Nothing else on the field could compare to that rich, deep, lucious sound of music being performed beautifully. They deserved 10s. They were robbed of the brass caption. (Cadets vocalist could spend some time with the contra line to learn legato and phrasing - the music she sang required both, no vocalist her age has the breath support and legato skills that her music really required).

I stand corrected, my bad.

Your show was incredible, brought tears to my eyes several times. And clearly got the best, loudest, longest ovation of the weekend. You should be extremely proud.

Hmmm... Interesting, only Madison, BK and PR's scores improved from Semi's. Everyone elses score was lower. Great finals performances, I don't agree with all the placements (but then I never do).

No, it wasn't classless, rude or obnixious at all. The score and placement for Carolina Crown was booed briefly, but followed immediately by a prolonged standing ovation that lasted through BK's score announcement. Crown clearly got the message that the crowd thought they were robbed.

I need one ticket for Friday and 1 ticket for Saturday. Pelase email me at edboxer@aol.com.

I need 1 ticket for Friday and 1 ticket for Saturday. Email me at edboxer@aol.com

Fan of DCI since a fraternity borther (Phi Mu Alpha - Delta Eta) turned me on to it in 1973 (yeah, I'm somewhere between 40 and death). Every year at finals I should hand him a bill for the amount of money I've spent on DCI each year. Don't get to see that many shows (NYC) but do go to Allentown and Finals each year. That said - I need Allentown Tickets - one for each night! Email me at edboxer@aol.com