mingusmonk

After a drive home and a brief amount of sleep, and washing off an obscene level of humidity induced sweat, I am back with "Thoughts!" Music City - They have a very mature sound and look! Considering the post-covid mass ageout phenomenon across the activity, this was a great surprise to begin with. Any early season jitters have been flushed out as it feels like mid-season form and this was only they 4th competition! An entertaining and interesting show, designed a way that really makes the most of what their member's bring to the table. Crossmen - Are they short of the 150 max? They look smaller. I didn't want to waste the whole show counting but they seemed about 10 or 15 members shy? Sorry if this is addressed in the corps thread. I don't keep up with everything. This could be due to Music City before them filling the field space with props. Xmen props where minimal in comparison. It left a lot of open space. This corps is crisp. The brass was intentionally reserved and carefully chooses the moments to maximize their sound. The battery has some great notes and playing, but so much of it was unfortunately staged behind the mid-field or even back hash. I understand the show concept but the design doesn't really sell the concept too strongly. Fortunately, I truly love the music choices and arrangements. More than makes up for it. Phantom Regiment - After Detroit, I heard lots of the usual bemoaning about corps losing identity and being unrecognizable being laid at the foot of the newly costume-ized Regiment. Don't buy into it. If you were blind, you would still immediately recognize these sounds as Regiment. And even visually this costume still leans to a PR look ... without helmets. No big deal. This year's approach is all aggression. The loudness of the Detroit feed was not a technical snafu. Last year I was commenting with friends at how hard the new percussion crew had them hitting the drums REAL HARD. Now the brass matches ... and then some. And visually, they are pushing velocity and power. All along with classic PR signature marching techniques. Baffling how anyone could question their identity. Bluecoats - Coming out with a show so well-implemented before August should be a crime. The level of detail that goes into throughline here is mastery. As a viewer that tends to get distracted from show concepts while hyper-focusing on the minutiae of specific performer/performance details, I found myself at the end of the show haven't not been sidetracked even once. With that being said, it seems obvious that the design staff has plans to further curate this piece and I cannot wait. Brass is very good. Guard is deceptively good. They don't fall into the trap of setting up irrelevant expositions of technique that some of the top guards get into. The work is seamless into the show design yet still incredible. While the battery is great, what will make the difference for this percussion is the matching level of talent on display both in the front and on the field. PR Encore - Phantom's new levels of volume makes for a fantastically fun encore. Over the past few years, they have converted this pocket of Indiana into a little home away from home. I've seen PR in Rockford, and they have a great home crowd. But this is right under that tier. Dwight Emmert has forged a nice relationship between the corps, Evansville schools, and the community.

Bloo

Regiment

Bones

Music City

Came for Bluecoats ensemble rehearsal. Unfortunately the rain storm arrived at the same time. All clear for now, though.

Just finished watching a live stream. They did 3 tunes of the alumni corps show. Some warm up ensemble pieces. 2022 full show. Encore tunes. Then 1812. I'm not sure there are words to describe the experience of listening to this megacorps. Cannot wait until semis.

It is?

Show has now been revealed to alumni. 🙈🙉🙊

@NewSkool started the idea for the 2013 season. He opted to not continue. With his permission, I took over and ran 2014, 2015, and 2016. If I get time, I'll give it a shot. Gonna be at least a week before I can get anything done on it.

@Liahona 👀

For people that had been around a long time, the spelling errors, grammar errors, and writing style were telling us who wrote the "Report." In retrospect, there was quite a bit of disparity in the levels of preparedness and commitment by the groups involved the G7 effort. Depending on the organizations, their intentions seem to have ranged from "negotiation point" to "going nuclear." Had they all been committed at the level of the audacious author, it may have been a different story. Of course, that's me reinterpreting after the passage of nearly 12 years. Feels more like 25 years ago.

FWIW, Flo Marching has been making a concerted effort this off-season to bring top notch Audio and Video pros from our marching arts world into their broadcast crews. We'll see if it pays off. Kind of wild that this approach escaped them for so long, but hopefully we see and hear the improvements.

That image was from a reunion party for all assorted cast members in Las Vegas.

They were still doing shows in Japan in 2019. Since Covid-19, their website has gone offline. And James Mason's website has always been fairly outdated. http://www.blasttheshow.com/ - DEAD http://megshows.com/ - Outdated

Anyone remember pre-WGI drums in an auditorium? UCLA bass solo featuring YYZ.

I miss the presence of@whitedawn on these boards bringing actual legal expertise. Thanks much!

Varsity has become a partner of DCI for SoundSport. AKA "SoundSport Scholastic." https://www.varsity.com/performing-arts/soundsport-scholastic/ https://www.varsity.com/performing-arts/soundsport-divisions/ They had scheduled Marching Band division competition(s) on the books last fall (2021) that never actually happened. I wonder how long they will keep trying to make these partnerships work? Their Winterguard and Winter Percussion programs, AKA Varsity Performing Arts Winter Showcase, started 2 years ago and have failed to catch on. As a matter of fact, their website still says "Stay tuned for the 2021 date and location." https://www.varsity.com/performing-arts/winter-showcase/ Not exactly taking the marching arts by storm. We shall see.

I wasn't planning on posting this here but since it seems to be a relevant topic in other corps threads. I appreciate the transparency. https://bluecoats.com/news/2022/2/3/2021-diversity-amp-socioeconomic-impact-report

This is wild! To clarify since it doesn't mention it in the article, Mark Greenberg is President and Chairman of Tresona. His son is Jann-Michael Greenberg, Vice President of Tresona. Wild

Joseph "Joe" Courtney was an ever-present figure in our beloved activity and it's related families. I cannot claim to know all of the details about Joe's corps connections. But I know he was always around, doing a part to keep the show running: A performing member, a teacher, a corps director (the Vaqueros), a judge, a DCI employee, a Show Coordinator, a Central States Judges Association Hall of Famer. Hell, if you look hard enough you will even find he was a DCP member. I'll have fond memories of meeting Joe on the floors and fields, with his calm and friendly demeanor, welcoming our performing groups to their moment on the performance clock. It's times like this that I miss our friend @Michael Boo because his combination of his encyclopedic knowledge (which was a similar trait of Joe's) and his familiarity with Joe would be a fantastic read right now. RIP https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/chicagotribune/name/joseph-courtney-obituary?id=32509493

FWIW, these registrations required a financial deposit that would indicated a relatively serious commitment. As to the topic, DCI did have a lot of 50th anniversary plans being made before Covid. Many of them may even still be in place. But I think one of the lesson learned from 2020 was not to get the cart ahead of the horse during a pandemic.

I am going after individuals and their burner accounts if applicable. Example of one that I did: You can report user accounts in general. So I went to "Dennis Carol"s profile and reported the profile for "Harassment and Bullying." In the case of "Dennis Carol" you could also report the profile for "Fake Account" or "Fake Name." It is a burner account. I cannot report his posts and comments as "Harassment" Because I am unable to tag the victim of harassment. She and I are not facebook friends. So I report his comments and posts as "false information." I am tracking to see the results.