hostrauser

Which 2017 show have you listened to/watched over and over Honestly? None of them. 2017 was one of the most "meh" years in recent memory for me. I've cooled on SCV, Crown (1st half), and Coats upon further reviews. I was never warm on Devils, Cavies, Phantom, Cadets, or Crown (2nd half). Really, the only show that grabs me in March 2018 as well as it did in August 2017 is Boston's "Wicked Games", but I haven't been replaying it non-stop. I can't remember the last year when only one of the Top 6 stuck with me.

Despite the good poll results, I ended up with only about ten players interested, so we will be waiting until the summer again.

There will likely only be one tour schedule, and I'm debating doing shows only on certain days of the week, like Thr/Fri/Sat. But it seems like there's enough interest to hopefully run a Winter season. We'll plan on sign-ups starting in December with the winter season running January-March per usual. I also have a trick or two up my sleeve, an idea I didn't want to try during the live season, but something we've never done before that might make things a little more interesting. :)

Hate Boston sports teams?

Correct information See, I can do that, too. (But seriously, my first paragraph was direct from a YEA! staffer I personally know, and my second paragraph was confirmed in this very thread. My ending supposition may be wrong, but I based it on very correct information.)

Senility is a terrible thing. I thought for sure Cartwright had been at Phantom longer than a year and I was wrong. I thought the music writing this year was a step in the right direction. I still felt the visual program was a bunch of independently good ideas that did not work together well enough to form a solid whole.

That is what is puzzling me so much. Cartwright's work with Broken Arrow (and, before that, L.D. Bell) was constantly inventive, original, and fresh. Why have the past several Phantom shows he's been involved with been so... well, basic? And uninspired? I don't have the answer.

After several years of under-written shows that didn't give the corps a chance to succeed, Phantasm at least had the chops to give them a chance. But there were still a lot of problems. Most key for me: the past two years, Phantom has had shows with a lot of great IDEAS that have failed to coalesce into a working whole. The cohesiveness of show design is simply not there and, let's be honest, hasn't been for a while. This leads me to my first, most drastic suggestion: 1. Replace Dan Farrell and/or Wes Cartwright Phantom needs new eyes at the top and, quite frankly, some fresh design and instructional staff. This won't be an easy task: quality program coordinators do not grow on trees. But Rick Valenzuela is already in place and I think he can bring in good replacements. This corps has scored below 90 at Finals only four times since the build-up system was introduced in 1984. Three of those have been in the past nine years. Their Finals score has dropped five years in a row, and their Finals placement has dropped four of the past five years. There has been no correction in the opposite direction to provide optimism. It's time for a big change. In fact, it's time for multiple big changes. This leads me to my second drastic suggestion: 2. Lose the helmets Yep, I like the look, too. But they are visual albatrosses and it's not reasonable or feasible to keep designing holes in the show for the members to take them on/off. Phantom wore shakos before, they can go back to that, go bare, or even get creative like Crown and invent an entirely new type of headgear that fits the Phantom image without hamstringing the corps' visual potential. Visually, the activity is leaving Phantom behind. You can argue all you want that it shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is. 9th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 9th, 10th have been their visual subcaption scores the past two years at Finals. The middle 7th and middle 9th are their Visual Analysis scores, which means they are maxing out what little visual vocabulary is written into the show. 3. Keep your classical identity It might seem contrarian to my prior two statements, but there's no reason Phantom needs to reinvent the wheel on their musical books. There's more than enough content in the classical repertoire to provide Phantom with great shows for years to come. (Mr. Will Pitts, please check out a work by English composer Granville Bantock entitled "Thalaba the Destroyer".)

My understanding (from an "off-the-record" conversation with a YEA! staffer) is that The Cadets would have gone under years ago if not for their USBands cash cow. Their marching band circuit is basically carrying every other part of the organization. Now, I have ALSO heard a rumor from people in the band world on the eastern seaboard that USBands has started pulling a few shenanigans and there are rumblings of discontent about what they are doing and who is responsible. Which leads me to the speculation that IF George Hopkins is out at YEA!, it will be not because of his recent mishandling of The Cadets but rather (ironically) his recent mishandling of USBands. Purely hypothetical scenario pondering, mind you.

Also, I have opened up the Rules Congress for proposals for any rules changes and suggestions for the next Finals location.

Last three DCP-I Finals have been Austin TX, San Diego CA, and Atlanta GA. The next DCP-I Finals will be NORTH, and/or international. Soft-Ineligible locations (Northern/International championship sites visited within past ten years): Toronto, Tokyo, Madison, Montreal. I would prefer not to revisit these places just yet, but you can try to convince me. Hard-Ineligible locations (no chance): Baltimore, Eugene, Minneapolis, New York City. Suggest locations!

Should we try the off-season again?

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR SEASON 27 CHAMPIONS! There's a new, first-time champion, too. But I'm not going to spoil which division.

Blue Devils are musical gods. Would not be at all surprised if they took brass caption from Crown tonight. That said... I still don't think they are attempting or accomplishing as much visually as Vanguard. Vanguard's guard is better and Vanguard's visual difficulty is higher. My placements 1. Vanguard 2. Blue Devils 3. Crown 4. Bluecoats 5. Cavaliers 6. Boston 7. Blue Knights 8. Cadets 9. Phantom 10. Blue Stars 11. Crossmen 12. Scouts

When corps staffs took the success or failure of the effect of a show's moments OUT of the control of the performers.

I feel bad for the performer. I am angry at the staff. The corps should succeed or fail on the execution of the performers. This was not that. There was absolutely NOTHING she did wrong, and the failure was due to a risk in design. The corps chances of success are taken out of their hands when you involve electronic amplification.

Hey Crown, you know who doesn't have mic issues during their singer's solo in the ballad? Corps that don't use singers. Or mics.

Their lowest placement in 35 years!

Members of The Cadets perform an exorcism on George Hopkins after tonight's awards ceremony and the corps is back into the medals next season.

That is the worst-designed show I've ever seen The Cadets put out. I have no problem with the show concept. The execution of that concept by the design staff was abysmal.

You know nothing, Jon Snow. Blue Devils 2014 is the best drum corps performance I've ever seen. As close to technically flawless in all aspects as I think is possible in this activity. And I loved their show last year. This year, it's not working for me. At all. And so it goes. But heck, I grew up in Sacramento. After the Freelancers folded, I tried out for the Blue Devils. I didn't make the cut, but it's not their fault that I march like a pregnant duck with clubfoot. There's no ill will here towards any corps.

This year alone any of the top four or five could play the music. Crown has made a name for themselves playing music this hard while moving, too. Look at their 2012 show. Heck, look at their show this summer. True, they aren't doing super killer drill during their hard musical moments, but they ARE moving while playing. THIS. A hundred times, THIS. It's not so much that what the Devils do scores well that bothers me. It's that we are at or very close to the point where that is the ONLY way to score well in DCI.

Evidently not. You will just have to time it right. 24 hours after your last update. All caption changes must be in by 4pm CDT today.

Somewhat. For me, segmentation is less enjoyable. As far as difficulty, it has transferred the primary focus away from ensemble cleanliness and onto individual skill. So while I feel the ensemble demands are falling away, I would also argue the INDIVIDUAL demands (especially visually) are the highest they've ever been. And the coordination of elements really bothers me: even in very well designed shows (by modern standards) corps almost never "max out" all aspects at the same time, except for maybe the closer and a few seconds here or there during the bulk of the show. I'm not looking for eleven minutes of blastissimo either, I just want interesting/difficult music to ACCOMPANY interesting/difficult visual more often than it is occurring in modern DCI.

If the "how well" didn't greatly affect that then the rep/comp scores shouldn't change much throughout the course of the season. Similar to the effect scores. HOW WELL you are doing it is more important than WHAT you are doing. This mindset is correct, but I feel current DCI has taken it to the extreme.