ttrevan

Blue Devils, or any competitive group, "performing" Dada is pretty much the definition of Disneyfied cheese. You can't "perform" Dada...and even if you could, it definitely wouldn't be for a score. That said, I love Disneyfied cheese. In fact, I am the proud owner of a Disneyland Annual Pass. Premium Pass at that! I even went to Disneyland after the theater event tonight.

Les Eclipse

Hm... "Wake up?" Just spitballing at this point.

Yes. And "Enough is Enough" is part of the Barbra Streisand disco era songbook. I don't know which was crappier. "Enough" or "Enough is Enough."

Hm... Spoolie? And the Rondo answer is Florida Wave. I miss them.

LOL! You're just a hot mess today, Kath. I happily step aside. Go for it, Brasso.

Geez Kathy! Hardly what I would call "easy," but my proud Midwestern roots are screaming "WAUSAU STORY!!!!!"

PR show is really, really cute. SCV show is not cute at all but is at least on par with PR's design. At least on par.

I wouldn't have had them in the top 3 since Winged Victory, so for me this feels just about right. I understand that they are technically proficient...arguably the MOST technically proficient corps of the last three or four years. But for my purposes, all corps can reach a baseline of satisfactory technical proficiency where all I'm looking for beyond that point is how it impacts me. Each of the last three or four years, there have been a handful of corps that have gotten to that level but far surpassed BD in their ability to entertain me. So like i said, 3rd or 4th seems just about right to me.

1. Madison Scouts 2. Phantom Regiment 3. Blue Stars 4. Santa Clara Vanguard 5. Boston 6. Cavaliers 7. Blue Knights 8. Bluecoats 9. Carolina Crown 10. Cadets 11. Glassmen 12 - 22 All Other World Class Corps 23. The 1979 Claremont High School Wolfpack Band (My alma mater. We were really good that year.) 24. The Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake Super Bowl Halftime Show Featuring Miss Jackson's Booby 25 - 68. Really Any Other 43 Dreadful Super Bowl Halftime Shows 69. Stanford University Band's "Tribute to the OJ Simpson Trial." A highpoint in low class. (Though pretty funny.) 70. The Mariah Carey "Glitter" Album and Her Entire Line of Star Jewelry 71 - 99. - The First and Only Season of "Cop Rock" 100. The 2010 Blue Devils

Hoping someone can answer a few questions for me. The info on the Fan Network site is confusing. 1. Is the only difference between a Plus membership and a Premium SD membership that you get the 2010 DVD's with Premium? 2. The Premium SD membership says that you get "World Class Championship Performances." What is this? The Plus membership level says you get all live webcasts and all Video on Demand from 1974 to 2010, so I'm assuming the Championships webcast comes with the Plus membership. Thanks in advance.

And this kind of thinking pretty much defines esoteric. The fact is that I can set up a jarring tableau of my dog taking a dump on my front lawn, and a lot of what you said about Devil's show would apply to my dog's bowel movement. And having been to art school, I'm pretty confident I could get an excellent critique if I set it up well. But it's not entertaining. Shoot me now if I'm way outside of the bell curve, but I still want to be entertained by drum corps. Blue Devil's show THIS YEAR does not entertain me, and that would appear to describe the feelings of over half of the people who responded to this poll. So, in my opinion, no matter how well executed or ingeniously designed, it fails. Again, just my opinion...but the drum corps trifecta is superior execution, superior and innovative design, AND widely entertaining; and Devils do not hit on all three bases this year.

If I'm to be honest, me too. It's not that I rooted for BD to lose, but I did root for them to NOT win. And I'm not ashamed of that either. I didn't think they deserved it in 2008. I didn't think they deserved it in 2009. And I won't think they deserve it in 2010. I was a big fan of "Winged Victory" and past BD shows, but I am not a fan of their current chop-shop style (stealing someone else's description.

Well, I don't know what it'll do to corps' ability to prepare, but I do know that this seals it for me. I won't be there next year. School starts on 8/16, which means many faculty meetings on Thursday and Friday the week before. Honestly, I'm not that disappointed. I really can't adequately describe how much I hate that stadium.

I seriously doubt that there are enough of us who won't go back to LOS to force a move to another venue, though I am definitely one of those who will not return. My guess is that finals will continue to be viable at LOS just from parents, family, fans who will go no matter what, and locals. Really, I'm guessing that fewer than 10% of those of us who are vocally disappointed with LOS will actually choose to not return. Even I, being avowed today to not return, have to admit that there's a 25% chance I'll change my mind by June 2010.

I couldn't pick a winner in the 5, 6 and 7 block. Add PR and you have the most satisfying string of drum corps performances in many, many years. I left Saturday night feeling very lucky to have been there to witness it.

LOL!!! Demented minds think alike... I leaned over to my friend on finals night and said the exact same thing. If I were director of the Cadets, that's what they would have said. Then again, if I were director of the Cadets, they wouldn't have made finals night...so there you go.

I loved Don Angelica. Loved it when he referred to SCV as the Rolls Royce of the activity. When you're right, you're right.

That's right boys... Circle the wagons. This is typical organizational behavior. When dealing with a rogue you can't control, have someone in the organization (in this case, two people) fall on their swords to attempt to patch up the situation with the constituent group. It is a downright lie to say that Mr. Hopkins was nothing but respectful of the situation. Tens of thousands of fans sat and watched him create drama - with the bow, with the animated pursuit of Acheson, etc. These actions do not communicate respect. They do not communicate solidarity with his colleauges and the drum corps fans. Nice try DCI... I suspect that you were genuinely trying to take the high road, but in the process you just covered yourself in ####

Heh heh So this is what I love about these kinds of threads: Everyone BK Affiated - YES! Eveyone Else - NO!

Hm... I think my one wish would be that age-out year be extended to 46 so I could march just one more year. : ) Really...my family wouldn't mind me being gone for three months.

Oh my! You've got some really strong feelings about this! I guess that's good. Everyone needs to have a passion. Well...against my better judgment, which is telling me to not even respond, let me remind you, my friend, that there are a lot of people who travel extensively as a part of their jobs. Typically, I can manipulate my work-travel schedule so that I can catch shows in several different regions. Last year, I saw shows in So Cal, Atlanta and San Antonio, which in fairness is also why I didn't feel any particular urgancy to go to finals. I'd already seen quite a few shows. So, you are correct that I wouldn't fly to the other coast just to see a DC show...I didn't have to. That said, the fact is that even if I hadn't seen Cadets this season, I don't really HAVE to have seen this year's show to profer an opinion that I don't like narration in general. I've seen plenty of it. I don't like it. It's really that simple. I also don't particularly like ice hockey. Been to plenty of games. It's not my thing. Doesn't make hockey a bad or stupid sport. I simply don't like it. Same with narration. It just doesn't work FOR ME. And that's all I've ever said. I've been a big fan of past Cadets shows... "Perilous Skies..." "Beef" "WSS" The millennium show. I love what the Cadets have done for the activity. I've cheered on most of the innovations they've brought to the field. I just...don't...like...narration. And that's...okay. And as to whether I've seen Cadets this season... I'm not going to say! I kind of like that this is causing you some cognative disequilibrium. ^0^

The narration really kills it for me, and it's somewhat frustrating because it really ruins my enjoyment of shows that I would otherwise have really liked. Pacfic Crest is another good example. Cute show that would stand up well without any narrative explanation. The narration gives such an amateurish tone to the whole program. Honestly, it feels like sitting in an obstructed view seat. You can tell there's something cool going on, but there's something in the way of you being able to really and fully enjoy it. Not as a statement but more because I haven't enjoyed a critical mass of the programs the previous two years, I missed finals in 2005 and 2006 for the first time since 1985 because there just wasn't enough that I liked for me to justify spending the $$ to get my fam and I to Madison. We're lucky that we live less than a 1/2 hour from Pasadena, so we'll be there en mass this summer. Whether we go to Indy or not remains to be seen. I have no delussions that the revenue lost from my family not attending is impacting the activity, and that's not my intent anyway. I don't go simply because it's not enjoyable enough to me. This year, since I can go with little financial investment, I'll simply use my frequent need to go to the bathroom help me avoid some corps performances. I guess in that sense I should really thank these corps since my blatter seems to shrink every year. And on that note, I'll give myself a

I'm evidently in the minority, but I really liked BD's show...really the first time in years and years since I've liked a BD show. I wasn't totally surprised by the scoring gap. I was thinking it was be more like 1 1/2 points, but whatever. More often than not, judging puts the corps in decent placement order, but the scoring gaps are ridiculous and meaningless. Sometimes, I think we should just go to an ordinal system and be done with it. If it's not abused by cheating judges, and ordinal system's going to get you the best outcomes possible. But as international figure skating found out, the ordinal system really invites some really bad behavior from judges. But I digress... Bottom line, BD's got a beautiful show that will become even better by the end of the season. I was probably most pleased with how bright Vanguard's brass sounds. I'm not a big fan of the very controlled, subdued sound that some of the top corps have cultivated over the last few years. Vanguard sounded very full, rich, unleashed and beautiful. Nice job.

Nicely stated. The original post was just stupid. G's was downright mean and b*&tchy.