swmstom

Scouts: overall a good show. LOVE traffic jam part. I see what previous folks have mentioned with cheese factor of "gotta dance" and "moses supposes". A lot of dirt tonight..we'll see if it shows in final scores. Blue Stars up next.

Boston: may catch some grief but not a fan of this one. Were some nice moments. Good sound but nothing ear shattering. Drumline and pit had some pretty "ick" moments. Way too much singing for my taste. I came to a drum corps show..not the opera. Scouts up next.

INT was up but cancelled due to earlier lightning delay. Here comes Boston.

Colts: great sound and neat show idea. The narration was a little distracting from what was going on in the field..but I've never been a huge over-narration fan. I'm a dinasaur. Ending was very..meh. "Oh, it's over".

Colts up now

Mandarins: what a pleasant surprise. I love dark/angry drum corps so "Resurection" was right up my ally. Wow...hornline giving us some sound. Great show idea too...honestly any top corps could do this show..exact music, exact drill and it would be a winner.

Heat Wave: very small. Fun latin show. Pretty rough performance wise all around but they had fun performing it.good crowd reaction. Mandarins up next

Southwind....so great to see my old corps back. They were very impressive considering the short period of time they've been together. Some big sound early from the horns that tapered a little until powerful end. Great moments by the drumline as well. Heat Wave taking the field now.

Southwind on the field and it starts raining

I believe once this one awful-looking storm cell moves on it will be clear sailing. Already a good crowd on hand.

30 min lightning delay

Will be seeing The Men rehearse tomorrow before heading to the Opelika show. Can't wait to see what they have going on. I've purposefully avoided videos because I want it to be new. Also can't wait to meet my new "schleper" brothers on the cymbal line.

Looks like Scouts are creeping up on some folks and leaving others behind that WERE close in scores. More importantly to me, though,is a lot more positive reactions to the show. A lot more "WOW" instead of the "meh" I was seeing earlier. Can't wait to see the men in Opelika, AL

I've always thought silver drums with this uniform looked amazing. I couldn't watch the preview but reviews on the other thread range from loved it to hated it, so it's hard to get a good pulse on what to expect. Would have loved a reaction from the majority of "OMG that was Fn amazing"..so I'm nervous.

So this is what I gathered from all the posts on Scouts. Show design is great, show design is boring. Horns sound great, horns sound dirty. Uniform is amazing, uniform is blah. Guard is strong, guard is lacking. Drums are great, drums are lacking....did I leave anything out? Only consistency is the feed was spotty.

This excites me sooooo much. Makes me realize the staff really DOES look at fan andvalumni feedback. There was nothing wrong with this classic look. Just needed to be tweaked and modernized.

OMG OMG OMG OMG...Please let this be true. To the poster that said this look was "bland"..do you also think Cavaies and Cadets are bland? Because their uniform general look hasn't changed..just tweaked. I'll take a classic traditional look every day over the atrocious thing Crossmen is wearing.

Love hearing people give that 98 show love. It was a great show and very fun to march, but it often gets forgotten as it was sandwiched between the two epics of 97 Pirates and 99 JCS.

1995 was the first time the Scouts cymbal line threw the cymbals. They did it again in 2000 I believe where they threw cymbals over the drumline as they rotated a form during a feature. My line, 1998, also threw cymbals during our I&E performance. Fun stuff, but risky. And I can tell you....a cymbal slipping through your hands and catching you in the shin is no bueno

Anyone check out the brass clip posted on Scouts facebook page? Sounds like a very challenging book but I wasn't able to tell what song or music it could be.

I have to say nay on the spats there Flam Man....BUT....the uniform, or at least similar, to the 1988-2002 look......please please please bring it back. There was nothing wrong with that look.

Bump...shocked there isn't more discussion of Scouts for 2015. Anyone heard anything regarding how camps have been going? Inside info? Hopes?

I'm not gonna pull something off of Chris Komnick's personal facebook page, but back a few weeks ago or so, he posted a pic of a few measures for lead trumpet in the opener.....let's just say the notes were quite a bit above the staff. Followed with a snipet of mello part that showed some pretty wicked runs.

I would love the Scouts do something along the lines of Gladiator. Similar to the Pirates show and maybe even a tad similar to PR Sparticus. Every time I hear the Gladiator soundtrack I think...That is so Madison Scouts. It would certainly be masculine, loud, in your face and what we all were used to seeing and hearing from Scouts in their hay day.

I can understand the worry with hiring someone with no drum corps experience but I think Stars will be fine. I was at Auburn with, Dr. Miller and he is a great guy and even better teacher. He is highly regarded for his work. He was at Auburn with Stars director Russ Gavin, so those two know each other very well. I'm sure this hire wouldn't have been made had Russ not had the utmost confidence in Ward. As far as the judging community, they may not know his drum corps ability but I'm pretty positive they know him and his stellar reputation.