WestCoaster

Nonsense. The Blue Devils (you might as well say their name if you're going to slam them) present the most professional product, year in and year out, and the high level of demand is an integral part of it. They're just not stupid enough to allow themselves to perform poorly by making the show *too* hard to pull off. That's sort of "show business 101", and the Blue Devils understand that perfectly. It's kind of like a great broadway show, or a smoking jazz concert, or the New York Philharmonic for that matter. None of these *professional* ensembles allows any dirt to enter into their performance, and neither should a drum corps (in the name of "a beast of a show" or otherwise). The main objective is to put out the *best* show possible. Not the "almost coulda!" but give us points anyway 'cause we really, really tried! The Blue Devils put out the BEST show, more often than the rest. Deal with it. I'd much rather see a professional show performed flawlessly than an overly difficult show performed at a sub-par level.

You haven't missed anything. You're just trying to split hairs. The amount of negativity against the Blue Devils here is long-running and well known.

That's why. There are fifty or so BD fans on my Facebook page, at least, and every one of them avoids this place like the plague because of all the irrational, nasty hate-filled comments about the Concord kids.

No way to tally the high GE winners over the years? Surely SOMEONE has kept track, no? Cadets must have a strong track record, along with SCV and Crown...

Noone has a tally?

Congrats to Crown for winning best GE this year! They certainly did pump up the crowd and that's how you do that! I'd love to see who's won GE over the years, and how that stacks up to the winner overall. Anyone want to chime in with info on the best GE winners recently, and historically?

BD won guard this year in a highly competitive field. How many other guards have won the trophy? How many times have they won? I wonder if anyone has the stats handy. I can only say that I remember a handful (Spirit won guard a few times in the '80's iirc, and the Cadets a ridiculous number of times), and I'd love to see where everyone stacks up. Anyone have the data on "through the years" for best color guard?

?? With the Cadets winning the trophy handily (and overpowering a one-two punch of BD and Crown to get there!), where do we stand on Jim Ott trophy's? Who has won brass the most? How many corps have won more than once? Fun topic, new criteria. Discuss.

With BD winning their umteenth Fred Sanford "best drumline" trophy, where do we stand? I'm pretty sure BD and SCV are neck-and-neck, and I wonder if it's all tied up yet again? Who else is in the mix? Cadets have their share, and the Bridgemen with their three-peat back in the day. What's the official count now?

Very interesting article. Just for the record, though, Star was 3rd in 1992, not 2nd. Cadets overtook them finals night (so I'm pretty sure they were more than 2 tenths out, too) Mr. Cook was maybe thinking of the Friday night of that year when they were indeed 2nd, after having won the prelims on Thursday.

Indeed they can.

Whew - what an amazing year, and now we've got FOUR incredible corps in the ultra-elite '99 Club', so vote for the one you consider 'greatest of all', and if you care to, mention your reasons why (won all captions, dominated the year, etc...).

One Cadets ensemble participated in 1984. Phantom has participated many years (not sure about recently though).

The OP made a reasonable observation, there's no need for hostility. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the way you look at it, this aspect of championship has become very much 'the BD show' in recent years. It didn't used to be that way — back in the day every corps except Garfield participated. And truth be told, the reason Garfield didn't do it had little to do with their stated objections.

Finish line in sight now, for a while it looked like SCV was running away with it, but BD pulled out another 'w' last night - what a couple of amazing lines doing battle this year, we're lucky to have such awesomeness in our midst (and to Birchtimp above, I like Cadets' line a lot this year too...they earned their title last year quite convincingly! never count those guys out...)!

Have you watched some of BD's lot vids? They were *extremely* dirty until about a week ago, but they must have done some serious cleaning in a short period of time, because the difference is literally night and day — I'm not the least bit surprised they're beating everyone now, they took it up about a dozen notches and are firing on ALL cylinders at this point. Not to say that SCV is bad by any means, but I have rarely in my 30+ years of drum corps seen a drumline clean up so much so fast like this BD line has. It's so ridiculous my first instinct was that they were playing poorly at those early shows on purpose lol.

Okay. So, anyone else digging the BD drumline this season? I can't possibly be the only guy impressed with the amazing amount of cleaning they've done, or the cool beats they're throwing down this year. Who's with me?

Have you guys checked out the BD drumline vids from the past few days? OMG - the early season looked pretty questionable and I had the feeling they weren't really in the running this year for the drum trophy, but wow. They cleaned up REAL fast over the past couple weeks. I can't say I'm surprised they beat all comers at the last few shows, holy cow! Anybody else really digging this amazing drumline?

The Blue Devils will be featured in the upcoming Pixar film, Monsters University. They did the recordings at Skywalker Ranch, how cool is that!? http://bluedevils.org/news/story.php?newsID=568 A fantastic opportunity for a legendary drum corps, and great exposure for the activity as well!

First of all, meh. Secondly, Blast isn't drum corps. Thirdly, they did a LOT of things wrong and as semi-successful as it has been (I say "semi" because usually successful broadway shows actually pay their performers more than a pittance...though in true drum corps fashion the producers and staff made a lot more cash than the ones doing the actual work, lol), I think there are plenty of examples of corps on the field surpassing what they put up on that stage in many ways (BD 2010 being one example outright, plenty of other examples abound). Blast is neat, I like Blast. But to call it the "pinnacle" of drum corps is ridiculous. They're just one successful iteration of marching band stuff (and so far removed from drum corps instrumentally AND programming-wise that they really ARE more like a marching band than an actual drum corps, too). Having said all that, I think Blast is great, so don't get me wrong.

Gratuitous attacks from the usual suspects (aka the DCP peanut gallery) notwithstanding, I like this. A lot! Good stuff, funny yet right to the point. Kudos!

True. 87 was more of a patchwork quilt. Wasn't impressed (except by the drumline...wow were they monsters!).

Great hornline, sure. Great guard too. But the drumline was a train wreck. Not only could they not drum, they couldn't march either (so they brought down the scores in that way as well). Not to mention the fact that a great hornline means less when the ensemble is such a wreck because the drumline can't play with said hornline. I loved the show, but I'm just being honest. That was a very painful year for BD (losing a pair of legendary instructors will do that to ya), and it showed in the scores. They were lucky they weren't seventh.

I DO hope that more corps will start performing that way, I think it's the best way to go. How is that cutting them down?

You can imply whatever you want. I never said any such thing (but I'm beginning to understand how vultures operate lol). I hyped BD...I said that if (and I said specifically IF) this is the future, that the professionalism is the key. And that other corps should check it out. Again...sue me. It's my opinion, and there's nothing wrong with it. BD plays incredibly professionally for an amateur activity. Sorry I pointed that out and thus ###### you all off so much.