roosevelt

Crown does have a weakness in percussion. Their guard seams fine to me, but their percussion is a liability. Every group that beat the in drums last night has a better percussion section. Cavaliers? Check. BD? Check. SCV? Check. Bluecoats? Check. Cadets? Check. That is a pretty good top five in drums. As for Guard, it is very possible for them to have a great guard and still finish 6th. All of the groups that beat them out have solid guards. They even beat Bluecoats in that caption who usually have a good guard (even though I understand that they are not as good in that area this year). BD, Phantom, SCV, Cavaliers, & Cadets all have solid guard this year. The judge could have been completely in the right for putting Crown in 6th in guard. Last year a 6th place corps won drums. It is possible for a corps to have one caption that is outperforming the rest of the ensemble. It is also possible for the opposite.

The order for all of the TOC shows is the same.

I am sure that their performance on the field had nothing to do with it at all.....

I mostly agree. BD does get a lot of hate. That is one of the burdens of being what is essentially The Yankees of DCI. It does not help though when many people from the organization thumb their noses at people who question them. I can't tell you how often I have heard someone say "well, 14 championships and 23 brass titles says otherwise" when someone has an opinion that BD has areas of improvement. There is plenty to blame to go around on both sides of the aisle. Being a D-bag in response to someone who is hating in BD is not going to get BD any less hate on here. In reality, it is going to get them even more. In general, I would say that the homerism on here is pretty bad. We are all guilty of it. Nearly everyone's opinions on here are colored by their preference for one corps and also colored by their dislike of another corps (or more). Personally, I like BD this year. Enjoyable show. I liked last year more because it pushed the envelope and did things that had not been done before, not to mention it was super clean. This year's show is not pushing the envelope IMO. I can enjoy it, but I don't think it is innovative enough to be in the championship discussion. Neither is Crown, but Crown is entertaining enough to be in the discussion for the title; even though I think The Cavaliers are the team to beat as of right now. In regards to visual demand? BD does stand around quite a bit - especially while playing. How they make up for things is the vocabulary that they exhibit. They are trained and they move very well. Their visual ensemble is also very tight (as always). So, I think they have a lot of depth, but not a lot of difficulty. I think Crown and Cadets have a more difficult book, but it is not being achieved at the same level as BD, so it is a bit of a toss up. If you do more, there are more ticks.... but there is also potential of more achievement. In the end it will come down to who is doing the most AND is clean.

I don't disagree with your assessment. It is your tone that is the problem. It is possible to be both correct and arrogant. It is possible to be on the right side of the facts and the wrong side of argument because of how you articulated yourself.

I am sure that you know that there is a perception out there that BD alum and fans are arrogant right? Well, you certainly cleared the bar with plenty of room to spare. Nicely done.

I agree 10,000%. People always complain about slotting on here, but when we have a performance order that is jumbled up to help combat judges from slotting then people wig out... or at least they wig out when the order does not favor their corps. Also, people complain about people not judging the corps, but the name of the corps. However, when we have a corps that gets first in some captions and 5th or 6th in others they complain about judges being all over the place. Finally, we have folks complain about judges "reading recaps," but if a judge doesn't read a recap and gives the same score or a lower score than that corps got the night before (even if they had a bad night), then people freak out. I have worked, and judged with a lot of folks that are currently judging in the activity. Most (not all, but most) of them are very capable teachers or designers, and adjudicators. Are there some that are better than others? Absolutely. Are there folks that are great in one caption (field performance), but bad in other captions (ensemble or effect)? You better believe it. The easy thing to do is to blame the judges. To call them stupid, or corrupt, or whatever, but I can tell you that most of them are solid and blaming them every time you don't agree (or lack the perspective) is the easy way out. Unless you were on the field, or in the box, AND are familiar with the sheets (which at least 90% of the folks who post on here are not) then you really don't have the perspective that they have. Anyways, I am a huge fan of random draws. It helps give corps a better chance at moving around from night to night, and in the end, that is good for the audience and the corps.

Because of many many many of his previous posts over the last few years.

I agree, but you will have people that will say "how did so and so get this as a full corps, but this in X caption!! The judges are stupid!!!!".... even though it is possible for a corps to have a great percussion and brass section and a bad guard OR a high ensemble score and a low field score or vice versa. The sheets are wrote specifically to be different.

Yeah yeah we get it. You don't like troop, but they are the real deal again this year and again, you feel the need to bash them.

Yes there is. Well at least in percussion. Crown's percussion section is not good. Unmusical and dirty. The guard I thought was good though, and of course they have a great hornline.

Yes there is. Well at least in percussion. Crown's percussion section is not good. Unmusical and dirty. The guard I thought was good though, and of course they have a great hornline.

I know right? BD was excellent tonight. I like the show too. I don't think it is a championship show, but it is very good.

It is also pretty important to point out that a lot of SCV's percussion staff, including Paul Rennick, is from TX and all or nearly all of the brass staff is from TX (The University of Houston). With that being said regional bias would be an issue pretty much anywhere.

VERY true. I heard a corps run through recently on youtube where it was painful to hear.

Agreed 100%

Go watch one of their shows and you will your answer about step size and direction changes.

Yes. It takes longer to learn four sets than one. Also, it means you have to change directions and activate more muscles more often. Yes. If I remember what I have seen over the last 20 years that I have seen them, they have done that every year.

please explain

Sometimes that is the best plan of action, sometimes it is not. Going slow and making sure you are learning it right helps you get much cleaner, faster down the road. Learning it fast and not learning it the right way could mean you are developing bad habits though which need to be broken with a lot more reps down the road.

Are you suggesting that all other corps have a show that is as difficult as BD or Cavaliers? I hear that what the cavies performed last night was over 220 pages of drill and that is still with almost a minute left to put out there. Who knows what BD has this year. I am sure though that with the props they are using it takes a lot extra time to learn charts. This is not meant to be a slam on props BTW, just saying it does slow things down.

No. You are correct. Romantic Music was all about the program or the libretto.

Just so you know, I am not a cavaliers fan. I am a drum corps fan, so naturally I like Crown since it reminds me of Star. I do like BD too because they play so well. I really did not like cavies for a few years there because of how they played (or didn't play) their horns. Seems like that is on the mend now though.

I agree completely. My rants on this topic have nothing to do with the corps. It is the folks on here who are chastising corps for not being completely done with their show (drill) on June 18th. I don't have a dog in this hunt. I marched Madison a long time ago and worked with a bunch of corps in varying capacities, but none of which are the corps that were obviously incomplete. Now I am just a fan of whoever intrigues me at the time. I remember last year people giving SCV a ration over not being done and I knew that had tremendous pressure from alumni and the BOD about coming out done at the first show. I think them putting the whole show out there on June 18th was probably a mistake by the reports that I have heard about the level of performance and how the audience is perceiving it, BUT the corps staff and admin likely had a directive from higher up and this is what we have. I am generally a believer that the corps should do what they think is right for THEIR CORPS. Of course they care about the fans, but they have to put the best interest of their group first. If you don't like what they are doing, don't buy a t-shirt that year. If you don't like them every year, don't watch their shows, but make no mistake about it, their job is to do what they think is best for their corps. Anyways, I agree with you.

Or for all we know they may have come from Fort Mill, or Australia, or maybe even Saginaw TX. Also, once you have seen the shows I think you will understand why the fans voted the way that they did.