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Farmboy

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Everything posted by Farmboy

  1. DCP's very own CrownStarr (although he hasn't been posting here for the last two months, no surprise).
  2. Ron, Here's a wordy answer to your wordy questions :) I'm not nearly attentive enough to answer all these questions, but I did attend the shows in Glens Falls, Quincy, Lynn, and Bristol (and I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express!). The line-up at these shows was almost identical: Crown, Scouts, Crusaders, Spirit, Crossmen, Jersey Surf (no Crusaders in Bristol). All of them were entertaining enough to keep me in my seat (except when I was giving a few standing o's), even when I was seeing them for the fourth time in five days. There was never a moment where I found myself muttering, "Oh, no, not that #$%& show again." I have no quarrel with any of the placements by the judges at any of these shows. Here are some moments that stand out: seeing the Surf pit play the Piazzolla tango with roses clenched in their teeth is the most charming moment of their show. And their Avatar-like green guard unis make for a great entrance by the corps. Crossmen's use of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah was an inspired choice for what I gather is a young group. You could hear the oohs and ahhs at all the shows when the crowd recognized it (I wonder how many of them know it mainly from 'Shrek'?). In Bristol, where it rained off and on during the first half of the show, there was a great moment when the sun peeked through the clouds dramatically during 'Hallelujah.' Spirit has a very engaging film noir theme, although they might be overdoing the sound effects. When the phone rang the first time I saw the show, I thought someone had forgotten to mute their cell phone. And there's a whole spoken-voice soundtrack in the pre-show that I could never understand, even after hearing it three or four times, because the audience chatters away through it until the music starts. They may need to rethink that part of the performance to grab people's attention. But the lead dancer in the red dress is captivating--she certainly gets the attention she deserves. 'Harlem Nocturne' was my favorite musical moment--I'm always a sucker for that tune. I should add that Spirit did a hell of a job in the full retreat at Quincy. There was a heckler in the audience during retreat, giving grief to a couple of the corps that just marched off without playing. "Play something, play something," he yelled. Well, at that point Spirit wheeled around to face the stands, and let loose with "Georgia on My Mind." Let's just say Spirit "won" the retreat. Elsewhere, someone critiqued the whistling that opens the Crusaders' show, but I thought the guy did a great job. A lot of the effect, though, depends on the audience quieting down in time--if they're not dead still, it can be hard to hear. Maybe he needs a lavalier mike :) In Lynn, the Crusaders added the white sheet visual feature, which they hadn't used in Glens Falls. I thought this might have been because of the muddy field in New York. I think it could become very effective--for those who haven't seen it, there's a brass soloist under the sheet, which is held up by two tent-poles, and a couple of dancers who can be seen in silhouette through the sheet--but for now, it seems to slow things down, and the sheet or canvas or whatever it is may not be translucent enough. The emotional high point of the show is when the corps splits in two, with the drums at one end and the brass at the other. I'm not sure any part is "mesmerizing" yet. But overall, I've only been going to shows for the last three years, and so far this is my favorite Boston performance. They were clearly given a lift by the hometown audiences. But I think the judges got it right in having Madison slightly ahead. I don't have much to add to what others have said about Madison. 'Empire State of Mind' ranks with the Bluecoats' 'Creep' as the most thrilling music I've heard from a corps this year. The moment where the four screamers come out in front of the pit, and the guard picks up the big drums consistently brings people to their feet. That was the emotional high point of all the shows I saw. The only fault I can find with Madison is just how much better the closer is (in my opinion) than some other parts of the show. I'm still ambivalent about the 9/11 choreography. But the closing moments are so powerful, they tend to override every other impression people might have had during the first 10 minutes of the show. The guard dance with the newspapers and briefcases is stellar. And it was very clever to have them remove their suit jackets when they pick up the white flags, because that adds the white shirts to the visual effect. (The patriot in me recoils at seeing white flags picked up right after '9/11' but I know I'm being overly literal in this reaction.) Full disclosure: I have a personal connection to Crown, so I can't be very objective about their show and won't say too much about it. But I will report gasps and laughter (in a good sense) both when the pianist is crowd-surfed in during the pre-show and when the guard girl climbs the tower and falls backwards into the crowd below. This show rivets my attention from start to finish, and at each of the four shows, I saw cool things I had missed previously, usually on the part of the guard, which I'm not sure is getting sufficient credit (at least on DCP) for its performance this year. I'd like to see the kid on the drum set, who is outstanding, get a couple of more moments to shine. Also, everybody focuses on Crown's brass, and for good reason, but the percussion this year is spectacular. Obviously opinions differ wildly about Crown's music and design choices this year, but when it comes to the kids themselves, I don't see any weak links whatsoever.
  3. The real joy comes from hearing about this sort of thing (posted today on Crown's FB page):
  4. This. The good news is, according to the New York Times, drum corps may improve eyesight! 'The Sun Is the Best Optometrist'
  5. Yes--drove from Ballston. Luckily the HOV lanes were still in effect, so 66 wasn't as terrible as it can be some nights. And the show didn't actually get under way at Tyson's till about 7. Any idea why Ballston canceled? I was panicked (it was about 6:15 when I got there) so didn't stick around to ask questions.
  6. Ha! Made it in 20 minutes driving like a maniac; luckily they started late at Tyson's.
  7. A-plus to all the kids for a game performance under adverse conditions. C-minus to DCI for production values. And not sure who to blame for this, but the theater for which I had bought the tickets, Regal in Arlington, VA, canceled and sent us on a wild drive through rush-hour traffic to Tysons Corner. Back to production values--it was dark, dark, dark. I can understand having some issues balancing out the day time and night time performances, but none of them looked ideal. Slightly better under the lights than in the daylight for the first couple of corps. And the sound was obviously a problem at DCI's end, since so many people experienced it in so many different theaters. Way too low before INT, way too loud at the end. Wish I could have heard Cavies, BD and Crown at the volume of the Blue Stars (and vice versa :) Very young crowd at Tysons, and very few stayed for the scores, fwiw. Didn't see the need for an intermission in the theater--would vastly prefer a production that edits out almost everything but the performances. Thirty seconds of commentary before and after each corps would be plenty. Given the sound problems, it's very difficult to have a clue about the music judging, since the production quality varied so wildly from one performance to the next.
  8. Just to be clear for those who didn't read the whole thread, the YT post that bummed Eric out was not a fan's video from the lot, or a bit of the show from a rehearsal, or even an iPhone-level video of a full-ensemble run-through with unis. It was a fairly high-quality (by YT standards) audio recording of the entire show apparently recorded at the same session where the corps was also recording the show. To read the title on the YT upload, which I won't repeat here (do your own Googling) it sounded like a quasi-official release. I'd be pi--ed too in Eric's position, and I'm someone who believes Corps should be flooding the social media with "sneak-previews" of their shows during the pre-season. But that's not what this was. Crown sells CDs of the show recorded during the preseason. So, yes, I assume this is about money (not show attendance, but CD sales). But so what? Even as someone who trolls that site constantly for glimpses of the show, this particular upload felt wrong to me.
  9. Okay, I paid up for the download. Sounds fantastic, though I admit I kept expecting Dionne Warwick to start singing.
  10. Yeah, Google says it's an hour and a half from my office in downtown D.C. The worst part is the HOV restriction on 66 until 6:30. God only know what 50 will be like at 5:30
  11. Looks like those tickets are now on sale. http://dcitickets.showare.com/ordertickets.asp?p=50
  12. Okay, the suspense is killing me (not). Who bought it, and for how much?
  13. sorry for the repetition--didn't see that the same question had just been asked
  14. Forgive a rookie question, but I'm curious about the fall-off in popularity over time. Take a show like Allentown, which I gather has been going on continuously for many, many years. What was the attendance 30 years ago? 20 years ago? 10 years ago? What were the ticket prices in those years? The crowds to me, as a newcomer, look impressive, but I have no idea what they were back in the day. Or is it the number of shows, rather than attendance at the ones still going, that has dropped off?
  15. As someone from the non-profit world (not DCI-related) once said to me, "'non-profit' is a term of art in the tax code, not an operating philosophy."
  16. I'm reading a terrific new book called "Royko in Love"--a collection of love letters written by the legendary late Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko to his future wife while he was serving in the Air Force in Blaine, Washington, in 1954. One of the letters makes passing mention of Chicago's Logan Square Drum and Bugle Corps, so I thought some here might enjoy it. May 9, 1954 Dear Carol, . . . We had our parade today and it really brought back memories. We were one of the first outfits to step off and after we finished I stayed for a while and watched the bands & drum corps come by. By Logan Square standards none of them were any good but I got a big kick out of watching them. One of the drum corps had uniforms very similar to the ones we used to wear and when they came into sight it startled me momentarily but when they started playing I realized that the only similarity was in the uniforms. I stayed around for about a half hour but seeing the majorettes and drum corps was getting to be too much to take so I found the rest of the troops at a local cafe. . . . ('Royko in Love: Mike's Letters to Carol' Edited by David Royko, University of Chicago Press.) David Royko, their son, adds this editor's note: "The Logan Square Drum and Bugle Corps, of which Carol and her brother Bob had been members, was a legendary outfit, at one point winning more than one hundred straight competitions. Though Mike refers to the Logan Square Corps as 'we,' I do not believe he was ever a part of the group, and meant 'we' as a fan."
  17. Was in Indy for all three nights (first time at DCI championships) and find it very hard to rank because just about everything was entertaining. But here goes: Crown Scouts SCV Cadets Cavaliers Phantom Blue Devils Bluecoats Blue Knights Boston Blue Stars Glassmen Honorable Mention: The Academy (love me some Borodin)
  18. That was great--one of my favorite bits of drill at the finals.
  19. I'm told it earned him the nickname 'Harry Potter.'
  20. Okay, correct recaps up now. That penalty must have been a typo by whoever was entering the data.
  21. What's with the recaps? A minute ago, they were up and showed BC dropped to fifth with a 9.1 point penalty. Now they've disappeared entirely.
  22. Yes, they were already on the highway. If I'm not mistaken, that may also be why they played earlier in the evening than usual. They had to be in Normal today for the Music for All Summer Symposium.
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