Octavarium

quality is terrible. I hope it's fixed.

high schools in this area head back around the 15th. Colleges in late august or early september.

It kind of sucks finals are a week later, honestly. By the time finals arrives in the first week of August, most corps are as clean as they're going to get... any changes in cleanliness will not be spotted by most people. Also, I know it's slightly off topic, but it kind of puts more pressure on students to get back to town in time for classes.

for the sake of discussion, what would be the cost of DCI breaking its contract with Indy? I don't think they're going to, but I'm just curious.

The Academy - 07, I guess. Blue Devils - 08 (06 close second) Blue Knights - 06 Blue Stars - 09 (08 close second) Bluecoats - 07 Boston Crusaders - 09 Carolina Crown - 09 Cascades - 05 The Cavaliers - 05 Colts - 07 Crossmen - 08 Glassmen - 06 Cadets - 05 Jersey Surf - 09 Madison Scouts - 06 Mandarins - 09 Pacific Crest - 08 Phantom Regiment - 07 or 08. hard to pick. Pioneer - 09 Santa Clara Vanguard - 09, 07 Spirit - 07 Troopers - 09

the thread was made before finals.

BD 08 has been one of the best drum corps shows of the decade. As much as I love PR 08, it was pretty obvious they had the crowd and emotion on their side... I think if you stuck judges in an empty stadium with BD and PR 08, they would have picked BD. Tha being said, I dunno about BD 09. It is cleaner than 08 PR, but they still didn't pull off the emotional high that Phantom did. Plus the corps is more complete... they don't have a dirty 5th place drumline. Personally, I think BD 08 would score higher if they were competing against themselves in 09.

I mean, honestly, it was BARELY good enough to be called "drill". Say what you will about BD this year, but at least the show was coherent.

we can go with this if it makes you all feel better. I just can't handle the truth :(

some well written drill and music definitely. miss those uniforms too.

we got it. you don't like Bb. May we move on?

I would agree with the original post. 03 was really a nasty sounding hornline in parts. 04 was much better, but 05 and 06 got rather aggressive at times, resulting in bad sounds. I thought 07 was one of their better sounding hornlines this decade, though.

this.

I don't think I will. No one is sitting here arguing that hornlines are too loud now... no one has ever said that. It's easy to understand that people like loud hornlines, and it's easy to understand that pits over mic sometimes. That's not the point. If a hornline plays loud and sounds good, no one is ever going to be opposed to it. If they overplay an already over mic'd pit, then you're going to have balance issues not only in the entire ensemble, but also in the hornline itself. That's what leads to overplaying. And that's the big issue. That's common sense.

clearly we all like loud hornlines, provided they aren't being gross, Jordan. Surely you didn't start a thread just to get everyone to agree on something that was common sense. Me? There were corps this year that did overpower the pit. And there were corps that had really awful stick outs in sections of the corps. Do I want hornlines to play softer? No. I just want them to sound good.

sure. and we can give all of the corps first place medals, cookies, and a hug during awards too.

I'd love to see Blue Stars try some of the anime type things they were doing before arriving in world class. Or just keep doing what they're doing.

I'm not saying Phantom doesn't know how to march. Just look at scoring trends all season long, though.

... your post contradicted itself.

You're probably right, but I contribute a 3 place drop over two nights to either a very bad run, or a judge that doesn't really know what he's seeing. I mean, take a look at Allentown day 2. Blue Stars were third in visual performance, ahead of Phantom by .5 in that category.

lol'd

Blue Stars went from 7th at quarters, 8th at semis, all the way to 10th at finals... was it just a bad run through? I know it wouldn't make much of a difference in overall placement, but that's kind of been one of Blue Stars better captions all year. The visual performance judge (William Chumley, I believe) had Phantom (and Glassmen) ahead of both Boston and Blue Stars. That's a little suspect to me.

Yes, they did.

there are a lot of ties between the University of South Carolina and both corps, so I would assume that would be the case. I know a lot of my Crown friends had a huge amount of respect for The Cadets.

My friend at finals said Troop received a standing o during awards for 12th.