Bandboy16

Kiwanis Kavaliers: A pretty cool show concept, and i will agree with everyone else in the fact that they need to lose the hats. I liked the field warm-up, the theme from the spider-man movie. One of the biggest problems for this corps is visual, very few of the pictures actually clicked into place. The best part of this show by far is spider-man song by the Ramones and when (I forgot which sone it was in) the canadians got funky. They have a good hornline this year and they have a very talented soprano soloist. I was glad to see them pull ahead of Pioneer. Pioneer: Kiwanis Kavaliers must have left some grease out on the field by the way that pioneer members were falling. A soprano fell and a snare fell who nearly took out the entire snareline. It is good to here something different out of pioneer, rather than the typical irish fare. I thought that the tables were a bit distracting, although I did like when the entire audience went "ahh" when the put them in a shape of a heart duing the ballad. The biggest problem is the size of the hornline, it was nearly a third of the size of any one else's. I really didn't enjoy their show too much, although I did like some parts, but, part of it may have been that I was excited for the big boys who were coming up. Madison Scouts: The marching warm-up was very cool and over-all the music was typical madison loud. The hornline was more balanced this year than the have been in the past and they played the music very well. I really didn't get how the bright orange outfits fit the theme. The guard was pretty dirty but the fighting-dance thing they did was good. Over-all it is typical Madison, very entertaining. Bluecoats: All I can say is that I have never enjoyed a Bluecoats as much as this one. I is pure entertainment from start to finish. The horn line was smoking and the guard was great. I really loved the begining sunrise scetch. The closing was really cool, especially because is Micheal Daugherty and that's as cool as it gets. It was a great performance and there were very few flaws Crossmen: It was good and very clean, especially percussion, the crossmen aren't my favorite corps, but tonight they started to make their way into my heart. Strawberry Soup is my favorite Don Ellis song and they treated it very well (I wish they would have done the singing and played the part where it sounds like people warming up). It was a great all-around show, the pecussion was the best section, but every section did its part to sell the show. Cavaliers: Although a lot of people have been doggin' on the cavies this year, I really enjoyed their show. There are definately some similarities to four corners but they are doing some inovative things this year. I like the first two parts a lot, but the best is definately the third. I really liked the valve clicking thing and the chant, I don't agreee with the people who say they are just trying to copy SCV. I didn't like the ending as well but the drill and the end was incredible. And, the brass staff has done incredible things with the hornline it's definately the best in years. There were flaws, however, at some points the gaurd was not crystal clean, and sometimes the drill was sloppy. The brass was not flawless either, every once in a while a sop would have bad tone quality and the sop feature was a little sloppy. Overall, it was a great show. The Scores: 1 The Cavaliers 89.50 2 Crossmen 84.05 3 Bluecoats 83.20 4 Madison Scouts 76.85 5 Kiwanis Kavaliers 65.80 6 Pioneer 64.70 Div. 3 1 Americanos 69.45

Sorry it's four days after the show, but my computer was getting fixed and it seems like the review needs to be done by someone. My only complaints for the evening, were that the numbers on the seats were WAY!!! to close together (I was practically sitting on the guy next to me's lap) and that the people behind me were a little too impressed with every thing they saw (they were always saying "that was cool" and such a it was a little distracting). On to the review... Americanos: Pretty good little div. 3 corps. I liked the concept of their show and it was actually played pretty well. Here and there a soprano would stick out of the texture. Their gaurd was quite good, especially for a div. 3, they together most of the time and actually did what seemed to be more difficult work than one of the div. 1 corps. Although they couldn't get their central prop up (a main part of their north star theme) because of the stupid Oklahoma wind, the show had good effect, although I didn't really care for the white silks, which were carried by the snares, behind the soloists during the ballad.