skywhopper

Can't believe I left this one out. Also let me add Shostakovich 5. Phantom's 96 arrangement left a lot to be desired.

In Phantom 08, the stabbed drum major represented the Blue Devils. In Madison 95, the boxes the guard was dancing on each had the name of a competing corps engraved on the top. In Cavies 10, the rifle sight set was clearly pointed at the Blue Devils. In SCV 89, the disappearing Phantom represented the hopes and dreams of all the members of competing corps. In Boston 09, the apple being bitten into is actually the heart of Dan Acheson. In Cadets 91, the kid who can't find a girlfriend is a diss at Will Cook.

Or 04 when they sang "nothing really matters" what you *couldn't* hear over the applause was the drum major singing "except winning".

Lots of great and somewhat untypical classical tunes in the 2010 season. But what pieces are you itching to hear again (The Planets? New World? Firebird? La Mer?) or for the first time on the drum corps field? Someone in the Madison 2011 thread suggested Milhaud's La Creation du Monde, which I heartily endorse for SCV. I'm thinking Beethoven's sixth would translate really well, but corpsreps says it's only been done once! Other things I'd love to hear: * Hindemith, Symphony in B-flat * John Adams, Harmonielehre * Michael Gordon, Terminal Velocity Or you could base a whole show around the theme of Ives' The Unanswered Question.

Two words: marching xylophones.

Oh god, I'd LOVE to see SCV take that on.

I had this experience with Crown's 2009 show. I was very disappointed with it early in the year after loving "Finis", but sometime after San Antonio, things clicked, and I swear as crappy as the Allentown VOD is from last year, if that thing had been a physical tape on DCI's servers, I would have worn it out running it over and over to savor the drill and the music. Wowee! This year I was hoping I'd feel the same way. And I do enjoy the show more, but for whatever reason it just feels slow. Maybe more than that it feels like a clone of last year's show, just with different music and less interesting drill. Maybe that was an intentional decision based on a meta reading of the Second Chance theme, but when they decided to just drop last year's ending in, I was pretty disappointed. I like the rewind effect, even... Maybe if they had found a way to work in bits from Triple Crown (photo finish!) and Finis (SCV-style company front stepping over the guard!) and then wrap up with Promise of Living's wall of sound... That could have been self-referential and awesome at the same time.

Ah, weird. I never noticed.

I will toss in that my wife--who's not a big drum corps fan by any means, but does enjoy the shows and puts up with my obsession every summer--hates the fact that Crown has started the show in such a way as to overlap the "Drum Major is your corps ready?" bit two years in a row now.

It's unfortunate when anyone acts this way. I'm sad to hear it about Crown parents and fans, but I expect there were such patches in the stands for most of the corps. I guarantee you most Crown fans also support the other corps. This Crown fan thought the placements this year were just about right. I don't know if I'd call it arrogance, but I have been disappointed that they just ignored that part of the show these past two years. I would prefer the main DM to turn and salute at that point. I think the DM salute is a great opportunity for a corps to show some personality and tradition. Maybe Mr. Daughtrey doesn't like the focus on himself or maybe the music can't do without all three DMs conducting--honestly the slow, sparse arrangement played across the entire field is going to need some tight conducting. But I guess that brings this back to the point of the OP: should they use their pre-show time in this way?

Interesting thoughts. I'd been wondering if a corps that wanted to make a statement could drop the amps and synths for a season, maybe keep the Bb and 150 members, but follow through on the old-skool teasing that Madison and Cadets employed this year, and come up with an authentic retro design that, while it might not win, would, by virtue of being different and being executed well, place well in finals and become a fan fave.

Had I checked the Blue Stars out prior to seeing them live, I would have thought the same thing. Glass and Adams have never really been done justice on the field--admittedly it's a major challenge. Usually with Adams it's Short Ride, which is a great piece, but hard to do clean enough to be effective. SCV 08 did The Chairman Dances, which I love, but they didn't really capture the energy in their arrangement. Cavies 09 pulled bits and pieces from Grand Pianola Music, another favorite of mine, but basically wimped out on trying to adapt it as anything other than segues between the other pieces. But the landing of the 747 from Nixon in China is a perfect choice for drum corps and the Blue Stars pulled it off big time. And they used Glass perfectly to set a mood for the show throughout. Amazing job by the arranger and the performers! This one will be in heavy rotation on my iPod for years to come. Absolutely incredible show, agreed. Congrats on the great score!

Oddly, I'm going to say The Cadets. I saw a lot of shows very early in the season, and as others have pointed out, seeing Cavaliers and Madison and Crown live makes a big difference in one's impression. But seeing The Cadets in person I was just bored. And for the rest of the season I couldn't shake the boredom with the show and the embarrassment over the sound clips. But I did start to enjoy the music more and more, and then just yesterday watching the two finals VODs, it finally won me over. Still not one of my top six shows this year, but it did make it into the Like column.

Thanks, drumcat! I'm happy to wait for a superior product. Looking forward to downloading quite a few this year. Great music from a lot of corps! I'm thrilled with the Blue Stars sample!

I'm sure DCI and the corps staff have thought about these things and will definitely be thinking more about them. It's not "wrong" as you say to think about it, but it is going too far to suggest that DCI has plans and specialized staff for every possible eventuality. This event would have been a lot different if the guy had just passed out, or if he had just fallen and not broken anything and gotten back in line, or if he had been in the middle of the line, or if it was a guard member or a drummer or a contra player or the drum major or an audience member. You can't plan for all of that. What needs to happen depends on what happened to the member, where they are on the field, what else is going on, etc. You can't have different plans for each possible variation--you would miss most possibilities and it would be impossible to remember anyway. The most important thing is for there to be people around who are paying attention and react quickly. And that's what happened! The poor guy collapsed mostly out of the way of the drill, and people ran out very quickly to help and got him off the field. What would you suggest should have been done differently, other than stopping the show, which I really think would have been a riskier move.

Umm, they can't be watching him the whole time. During fast drill, not everyone will have the same reaction time, is the main point, and collisions would occur across the entire corps, for example, if the Crown DM had issued a notional stop-show motion in the middle of the company-front collapse move that followed the injury, which is about as soon as he could have realized what happened.

Just wanted to point out that audiodb got this 100% correct back on June 8.

My understanding is that the member corps voted to "realign" the board by installing a temporary board. Much like how shareholders in a corporation get to vote for who's on the board of directors, same thing with DCI. One vote per corps and it came out to 14-9 or something. This is all in the background material pinned to the top of this board, fwiw.

If this is true, I don't understand why they don't drop the ticket prices significantly. Surely they'd do better to have bigger crowds at lower ticket prices even if it didn't balance 100% just for the concession and souvie revenue. I wonder if attendance will keep dropping after a few years of the same venue. Doing finals in different regions each year is probably better for picking up fence-sitters and non-fans than sticking to Indy for a decade or whatever.

Falls happen a lot. Very very rarely is an actual bone broken. I think the policy is: "if you fall, try to get out of the way". A broken leg is a different situation than a normal fall. No one would say "if you break your leg, try to walk anyway". The kid almost certainly didn't realize what had happened, and regardless of what is taught, his instinct would be to get up and try to get back in line, well before he realized what had happened to himself. And I'll echo the others who noted that it's clear there were people running to help immediately, and it's also clear that the rest of the corps and most of the staff had no way to know what was happening. They didn't see it happen and we only knew about it immediately because Michael Boo spelled it out. From the official video, it could just as well be someone who passed out and was having trouble getting their bearings.

Um, stay classy yourself?

Agree totally.

They've been having phasing problems in the Mahler on and off all year, and it was evident last night, too. And fracks on Nimrod. I love the music this year and I'm a Crown fanboy, but I think they pushed the brass a little too far this show. Hopefully they'll clean it up tonight.

I'm not sure. Lots of times there are shows I like or dislike for no rational reason. I think it's fair to come here and express that without having to go back and analyze things. Certainly an intellectual discussion of the finer points of a show is valuable, but it's not the one true way to judge a show.

I haven't seen anyone saying they hate a corps. Plenty of folks are complaining about certain shows or certain rule changes, and often they use the word "hate" or even get upset about it, but I don't think anyone who "hates" most of the shows a certain corps puts on would say they "hate" the corps itself, and I certainly haven't seen anyone doing so.