Tekneek

ESPN2 is not free.

It is almost impossible to be objective enough to be involved in a discussion of the show you just came back from performing. People should stop trying to take the comments and the numbers personally. In time, you may be able to see the differences in your show and understand how it happened. If you never do, that's fine too. Thinking about the applause, all the hard work, and all the fun is the right way to go and is all that ultimately will matter anyway.

I am guessing they aren't putting the rest on CD because it is cheaper and easier not to. That seems like the obvious explanation to me.

If you had extended your season 1 day, mine would've been shortened. :) I remember we were right next to each other for a week or two heading into Jackson that summer. Our score had stalled and ended up just barely ahead of what we had in the middle of the season.

And then bombed out after seasons ending on Thursday the next two years. Unfortunately, just missing the cut like this has finished off many a drum corps over the years. :(

This is a rule now? Have they legislated away all traditions yet?

Sounds a lot like what I had w/ Spirit in 1993 even! Not that I am complaining. It kept me fueled and that was all it really needed to do. I ate better in drum corps than I did my first year away at college and came out in much better physical shape as well. :)

They marched in 1993, coming in 18th and ending their tour at Quarterfinals that season. I think they went inactive in 1994. According to corpsreps.com... So, that would mean the Dutch Boy that made Finals in 1990 is still dead and gone, having been replaced by its own feeder corps.

'91 was Conversations in Blue? I thought it was Coversations In Jazz. All I can remember is Adventures In Time being in it.

What was Bluecoats site like in 1993? Spirit's site wasn't that bad, ultimately, but it was about the worst we had all season. Some stuff was stolen from us during our time in Jackson and the bugs/snakes were actually worse than the handful of days we spent in Florida at the beginning of tour. I was told by members of Boston that their site was brutal because of things other than the school they were at. Apparently it was really close to a chicken processing plant, as I recall, and the odor was making people ill. Also, while rehearsing, some helicopter flew over spraying stuff.

So, I guess a lot of people pre-ordered these? I ordered some other stuff Finals Week and it still has not shipped from DCI.

If you paid $69 right now, you'd be covered through the entire next season as well, right? I guess $39 is the best deal if you order it in June.

When somebody who knows nothing about the activity thinks these kids are putting in all these long hours for a 3 minute show, the whole idea begins to sound quite silly. Maybe now you get the point. They should stress they are only showing a portion of that units full program to keep it from looking totally foolish to the clueless out there.

I know at least some get into heated arguments in critique. I'm not sure they always come out of critique understanding more than they did before about how a corps is being judged.

Microphones existed in 1972, you know. Else we wouldn't have any recordings from that year at all. It's not like microphones were only recently invented, even the wireless ones being used out there today are not brand new technology. So your rant about DVDs makes no sense. I don't think the changes are evil. I think they add nothing to the show and even take away from it. Maybe I'm just not hip enough to understand that corps cannot tell a story without microphones, that a corps cannot be funny without microphones, and you can't put a strange and unusual show on the field without microphones. Now that you mention it, I don't know how I understood most of the shows from those other years without microphones.

These past couple of exchanges are the best I've had with anybody regarding these changes. I guess I can't stop change. I can just hope that it flops or is never used in ways that don't entertain me. I'll be honest when I say that I cannot imagine myself being entertained at all when every corps out there is talking or singing into microphones, or even marching woodwinds. I hope it doesn't come to that.

I guess I sort of understand where you are coming from. However, everything right up until they put microphones on the field still looked, sounded, and felt like drum corps to me. I can understand changes in drill requirements and styles. I can understand advancements in the way bugles are made/played. I just don't understand where microphones become a logical extension of that. I don't understand where electronic percussion even begins to factor in. I don't see any connection with a woodwind instrument. (I know the second two have not been passed, but I don't even understand why anyone would even propose it). I'm not against things that look, sound, and feel like drum corps. I don't understand the need to pull these other things in from the outside that don't appear to have any sort of organic connection with drum & bugle corps.

Thanks! Exactly what I was looking for.

And as I recall, they don't make that point clear enough in the show. At least a couple people I knew had been fooled into thinking some shows were only a few minutes long.

After hearing about what happened in 2005, I was worried that I would hate it when I finally got out to a show for the first time in years. Fortunately, I found the only serious abusers to be Crossmen, Blue Stars, and Cadets. Only one of which made it to the night show at DCI Atlanta and into Finals in Madison. I was actually able to tolerate the way Capital Regiment did it, although that's technically abuse of it by my definition. I love it for the pit, although I didn't think I would. They don't have to pound on everything anymore just to get something up to the box. Some corps have them turned up way too loud though, like SCV.

The old PBS shows from 1988-1992 were great enough for me. When I watched 1988, I had not even made it to high school (so I had not even marched at all yet). It was my first exposure to drum corps and got me out to a show the next summer. Apparently kids today just wouldn't care for that, or is it that PBS didn't want to show it anymore? I thought they did a decent job with the show. My wife, who unfortunately doesn't really care for drum corps at all, actually enjoyed the show. If you know what to expect, it isn't bad. I do think it got pretty good ratings last year, too. I don't know what impact that had on this season, but hopefully it will generate something positive for the future.

They didn't make finals until 1999. I had that calendar around 1990 or so.

I used to have a DCI calendar that listed all of the corps that were charter members of DCI. I remember at the time that Boston Crusaders were the only charter member that had never made finals. Is there a list of those corps somewhere, or does someone here know them all?

It's easy to think that nearly everybody involved with 'The Cadets' have already "drank the Kool-Aid" and are 100% behind Hopkins. Else, they would've moved on, right? In other words, it is almost rhetorical to say that their members and staff love him and think he has the right idea.

Presumably becoming less different over time.