Corbin

Off the top of my head, SCV 2009. Just don't understand the big deal about the show. Crown Member 90-92

Suncoast 88 catches my attention a lot for some reason. Crown Member 90-92

I would love to see a world class corps attempt the "Lord of the Rings" music by Howard Shore. It would be challenging and entertaining. Crown 90-92

I voted no. It may have pushed them into third, but no further. The problem with Crown both last year and this year is not show concept, but drill design. Leon May is too much into body movement rather than drill formation. Drill is hard enough to clean without throwing in all the body movement they had to do. May need to focus more on drill design in terms of pattern uniqueness rather than trying to get the hornline to dance and move like the guard all the time. There is a place for such movement, just not every other drill set. If people disagree with this assessment, just look at how much drill they had to change over the season. Change is always going to happen, but not every other performance. Also, they didn't seem to have a satisfactory ending to the show. It seemed artificially thrown in, and wasn't emotionally satisfying to me. It is also hard to win a championship playing the same number at the end of the show that you play at the beginning, I mean the number didn't change that much. In fact, the repeat of the music may be the reason why they didn't want it to be judged, because they knew the redundancy would hurt their score. In reality, it did. Judges can't just turn their ears off before they start to judge. So when they hear the same number at the beginning and the end, they are naturally not going to give as much credit to the Corps in terms of GE. Remember these are design flaws I am commenting on, not performance. The members executed this show to a fantastic level, and they have no voice over how the show is designed. In reality, it is a difficult but true that design issues rather than performance now play such a vital role in how a Corps is placed and scored, because members have no control over such issues. I love the 2010 production, because they performed the crap out of this show, but it just wasn't a winning design. Crown member 90-92.

1. 2007 - Triple Crown (The most intertaining show I've seen Crown do in 20 years of watching them) 2. 2008 - Finis 3. 2010 - A Sec2nd Chance (Took this show as far as it could go, kudos to the members. Too much body motion. An aggrevating Leon May signature - It's too difficult to get clean. Let the difficulty of the marching speak for itself) 4. 2009 - The Grass is Always Greener (Best Horline) 5. 2005 - Angelus (Great Show - Hornline got tired, but pushed through as best they could) 6. 2004 - Bohemia (Great Concept - Too much with the microphone) 7. 2001 - Industry (Innovation - Just didn't have the talent to pull it off) 8. 2002 - Greek Mythology (Again Great Concept, just lacked the talent at the time) 9. 2003 - Bellissimo (Again...just didn't think of anything better to do) 10. 2006 - in.trance.it (Abstract is hard to do, when you can't communicate with the fans) 11. 2000 - Mask of Zorro (The didn't know what else to do, I guess) Marched Crown 90-92.

Carolina Crown lost because Leon May designed a less than adequate drill.

I believe either Phatom Regiment or Carolina Crown should play excerpts from the "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy by Howard Shore.

I believe either Phatom Regiment or Carolina Crown should play excerpts from the "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy by Howard Shore.

For me, it was 1991 Star of Indiana. Just couldn't ignore that impressive hornline.

It's easy to clean a visual show when you don't march much. BD didn't deserve to win anything visually.

I am simply amazed at the hostility with which my criticism of Crown's visual designer has been received. Leon May is a good designer but missed the mark with this year's visual conception for Crown's show and didn't make the adjustments necessary that may have allowed Crown to win this year. It is also amazing to me that Crown only scored 0.7 higher overall when compared to their "Finis" show from last season, when this year's show was much more complex in everyway.

I don't know if they could get the copyright, but I would love to see Crown play sections of the "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy by Howard Shore. I think Phantom could also play this music well. What do you guys/gals think?

It is amazing how people complain for just the sake of complaining. I thought Crown had the most talented corps they have ever had. My only point is that the judges did not like the design of the show. The members did the best they could to execute what was a poor design. I didn't say I didn't like the visual program, but the judges didn't like it all season, and the final scores demonstrate the point. The only thing I didn't like about the visual performance was the members needing to "lean" in order to get from set to set. The "lean" technique, which has Star of Indiana all over it, looks sloppy. It's not the members' fault, but it is a design flaw. This is, therefore, why I believe the visual designer is to blame for Crown's struggling Visual GE and Overall Visual Performance scoring problems this year.

As a former member of Crown, I have been thoroughly impressed with their show concept this season. I think it is arguably (and knowing the tendency of Drum Corp planet, people with argue) the most difficult show being performed this year. I also believe they have the talent to win the World Title. However, talent alone does not a champion make. Crown is struggling visually and has all season. This is not the fault of the members' ability to execute. It is the fault of the visual designer. There are just too many parts of the drill where the members are leaning into sets and don't have the time to properly move from set to set. If you recall, Star of Indiana used to use the leaning into set concept of marching in their visual performances. Such a style is sloppy and very little can be done from a members' perspective to correct it. Therefore, Crown will lose this year because of visual design flaw, which is a staffing issue and not a member execution issue. After having said what I have, I want to say GO CROWN!!!! I will listen to this show for many years to come with pride that your brass line is the best and your percussion is strong. But please let the visual designer go.