DrumManTx

After seeing a video of the Bluecoats, if Santa Clara is firing on all cylinders, that top 7 including Crown, Devils, Cadets, Bluecoats, Vanguard, Boston, and Cavaliers is going to be a cluster ####, and I have no idea what the hell is going to happen. CRAZY! And I haven't seen Madison yet, and Blue Knights are great, and.........Phantom could be a lot better then I'm expecting.....and Blue Stars.......and.........this is gonna be a dayumn good year.

Yup. That ending is a BLAST. I haven't had that much fun watching a show.....since ever?

I am not going to spill anything based on the comments of the Bluecoats begging for it to be taken down, because I would feel bad. I'll say: 1) This show blew past and exceeded any kind of expectations I had for it, which were drastically high. 2) Tilt, Tilt indeed. 3) There's 2 other shows I had that kind of reaction to watching the first time. 2010 Blue Stars, and 2010 Bluecoats. Both of which have remained my top 2 favorite all time shows since. 4) Watch out top 3......they're coming at you teeth snapping, mouth foaming, claws scratching. 5) Where's my underpants? I need to change. My bowels seem to have tilted towards the floor.

Am I the only one that is absolutely in love with the ballad? Got some headphones on and......goosies all over the place. Love the resolution at the end of it, and I think part of it is that Creep-esque chord progression that someone pointed out. Ahh, drum corps season.

Spirit vs. Blue Stars vs. Troopers vs. Colts? Gonna be some CRAZY early season recaps!

I thought the toungy happy face would show that I was kidding. I was really just kidding! Haha. Sorry.

Looks like the Scouts are the other ones going all white.

Already finding little details I missed 1st go around. 1st set looks like the middle line with the drums on the end of it is a clock pendulum, guard has the clock hands in the opener.

I had to slap myself after watching that for thinking they'd be in the 11th - 14th range, more like 7th - 10th. When they announced this concept and the music, I was hugely doubtful they'd be able to pull off and portray the theme effectively, I was thinking more like "....that one second we regretted picking this show theme". HUGELY impressed, the music is beautiful, almost has a dream state like quality to it, the uniforms and choice of silks will surely accentuate that. Looking like another fantastic visual program as well, last year, sans the big blue ball, being one of my favorites. Guard looking phenomenal again. Easily my favorite Blue Knights program since I started following the activity, might be up there with my favorite 1999. We'll see, loving what's going on.

If they are I hope those are just for rehearsal and they have some for the shows that pop a lot more. Maybe in that blueprint blue? Almost sure they will. They could do some really cool drill stuff! Even more excited now, sounds like the show is cool and they are making great progress!

I'll second. Lol. Great stuff.

I might have..........lol. Why not, working 3 part time jobs this summer, I can spare $10. I have to say, BD, thank you. This show is such a treat. Through the Gordon Goodwin piece is just old school, playful, powerful, and completely accessible Blue Devils. The closer musically is a little more like the past few years, but not in a bad way. It's fanatical in nature, almost a dream state to me. I've come to enjoy the hell out of the past few years with some time, but BOY did they have me worn out figuring out what was going on. I have the utmost respect for those shows, 2012 being one of my all time favorites as of now. But this is what I, and the rest of the drum corps community have wanted, and you're bringing it. You officially have my favorite show pre-season. This is gonna get a few plays for sure. You're mixing the modern Blue Devils with the Blue Devils of the past, and it almost has an old school feel, but with the fantasy and flare of what they've been doing recently, I can't put my finger on it, but there's a hybrid of what we came to love of the old Blue Devils, and what they've been doing in recent years, and it is MAGICAL! It just seems like a fantasy.......Fellini's Fantasy perhaps? I can 100% TOTALLY see what the point of this show is already, and I haven't been able to say that bout the Blue Devils......since I started following the activity in 2008.

Or not. Only available to stream to subscribers at the moment.

Buying now, thoughts in about 30 minutes. Woohoo, they have some great recording on there!

I'm reserving 50% of my judgement on this show, the music, the uniforms, and other things until Wednesday at 7:44 when they take the field, and the other 50% until Allentown about when they've done all they can. I really have no idea what's coming, and who knows, I might just end up liking it. We'll see......love those silks in the pictures on twitter.

So back to the show...... The lull between the opener and the drum feature makes more sense considering that the brass is off switching over to other instruments while that is going on. That makes me feel a lot better there, if they can find a way to draw more attention to what they drums/guard are doing, consider me sold on that part.

I'll bite. This is taking into consideration that it's a 5 judge panel, percussion being judged instead of brass or guard, per fromthepressbox.com: http://www.fromthepressbox.com/20140618indianapolis.htm 1) Carolina Crown - 73.2 2) The Cadets - 72.9 3) Cavaliers - 69.2 4) Phantom Regiment - 68.5 5) Troopers - 61.9

Just gonna post this right here. Don't mind me......just passing through.

Dramatic is an understatement.

WOW. You're full of it. Lol. Sorry.....but that is absolutely false.

I second this.

I was just responding to another post. lol No worries. And I agree, geez, never thought I'd see some of these certain people get so nasty.

To be fair, while I'm not a Crown honk, I am a pretty huge fan though, I made that comment on the number of things on the field and I didn't bring BD into it.

Since it's getting buried in the other thread, I'll share it here. I wrote up a little mini review. You can agree, you can disagree, that's fine. These are my personal, unprofessional thoughts on the early season Crown show I just saw. I watched Crown rehearse pre season almost a year ago today, so I feel like I have a good idea of comparing where they are in comparison to last year. I'll start with some personal criticism's, which there's not a lot of. - Seems disjointed section to section, which is a typical early season problem and something that can be fixed. (See Phantom 2011). - Field looks VERY cluttered right now, the sheer amount of equipment is pretty overwhelming. Not sure if that is something they can fix. - The "Shadow Behind the Iron Sun", aka the car muffler section, was cool, and then it kept going, and going, and going. It honestly lost a little bit of momentum for me. - There were two things that kinda bugged me. The lofting of the Frisbee, which just looked like they were chucking them, not really floating like a Frisbee should. And the trampolines, hope they have more planned there because they did not add too much to me. They just kinda jumped on them for a minute and got off. What they said before the show has me hopeful that more will be added. The Positives: - Obviously the brass, I mean come on. I don't even need to say anything. - Drill design seems more interesting than last year, the closer was really cool in this regard. - Color Guard seems very strong, personally love the choice of uniform and flags. - Percussion, again seem better. Front ensemble sounds REALLY strong to me, drums are getting there. Sound better than when I saw Crown rehearse live last year. - LOVED the "Space Oddity" intro, thought it really set up the mood for the show. - Opener very strong, ballad gorgeous...and: - HOLY COW that closer! I loved it, really got that coming home feeling, and they brought it in. Having listened to the source music, there are that many notes in it. They're not just playing notes for notes sake here, it's all in the originals. If they can keep improving the percussion, work out the transitions and weave the show together more, and make the field appear less cluttered, I'll be 100% all over it and it'll probably be my favorite Crown show. Personally enjoy this one a lot more than when I saw them rehearse live last year, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Looking like another strong season for Crown, I say top 3 for sure. Will it be enough to hold off The Cadets and Blue Devils, and maybe another corps or two? We'll see. But I personally really enjoyed that VERY much! Happy 25th Crown! Love you guys! Here's to another 25!