frachel

Is the Crown soloist the hole? (looked like a boot on his foot)?

Crown's Ballad Cadets' trombone feature that reminds me Copland's Rodeo (beef song)

Martha's Ballet

I still love going there.. Been there every year since 1987 (except when they didn't have it there). I have my set parking street, my pre-game Yocco's. The removal of the back bleachers and moving the sidelines further away from the stands (prob about 10 yards further than they used to be) has made a huge difference though - especially for smaller corps.. not as intimate and even though the brass is loud in the top corps, I want them 10 yards closer like BITD to blow my face off 🙂

Still hear way too many warmups happening when the corps on the field is in a ballad or soft section..

A few observations from Allentown Saturday night. I was there with my daughter, and my friend and his 2 sons came. My daughter goes to Allentown with me each year, but that's the extent of her drum corps exposure. My friend marched in the '87 Bridgemen.. I'm a brass guy, he's into drums (not heavily, but that's what he did in HS and marched), his one son is in the pit in his HS band, and the other son doesn't do band. I've seen a bunch of Flo shows and videos all year, and as one would expect it was 1000x better in person - almost to the point where I may not watch videos until after the season because it really lowered my expectations going in and I was almost predisposed to not like a lot of stuff. Some general agreement from the group - Nobody could tell you what most of the shows were "about" once they were over. The exceptions - Colts (or was it Troopers - who had the oil rig and the Cellist? that one), Blue Stars and Cadets. Without any prompting from me one of the sons asked me why they bother with tubas since the synthesized played the bass so loud. PC is way too "inside baseball" - I knew the props and different musical licks from other corps they incorporated so it made the show a little more enjoyable to me for that reason, but nobody else had a clue. Favorite show of the kids - Colts (or Troopers - sorry i can't remember - the one with the oil right and the Cellist), Crown, Cadets, Cavaliers. Show that nobody could remember anything about on the drive home - SCV - except everyone loved the ending and remembered that. My own personal observances The top 5 brass lines were WAY louder than you'd ever know by listening to Flo. Crown was the volume winner. I didn't mind the Cadet's narration (I'm quite anti-narration) - though for the 1st minute or so of the show when it wasn't working the show was just fine as well - my opinion is that the show would be just as good w/out it and the narration doesn't add (but in this case doesn't detract either).. I will say during first minute or two my eyes were transfixed on the sound-board guy and his partner unrolling new cables and sprinting down the field to plug them in to get it working again. My favorite of the night, surprising myself, The Cadets.. followed by Crown. Crown still had too much dead-air (to me since I want to hear brass).. I tried the app, but it didn't work well. It synced and did the flashlight blinks during the countdown, but that was it. And lastly - how did they not choose Allentown as the song to play? That seemed like it woudl be a no brainer 😞

The ballad feels a little too technical to me - after the brass does the little upward flourish (3 sets of triplets) I want the top note to be held just a count or so longer.. even tied into the next phrase. It feels too short and the abruptness of the cutoff kills the emotional feeling.. for me anyways. In this transcription I'm talking about measure 39.. in this video it's actually held a little longer than how they currently play it and it feels better to me this way (even make it an 8th rest or no rest altogether).. I know it's nitpicking but its like an earworm for me.. my brain is yelling "hold it longer" when watch them lol.

How does the fabric stuff in the center prop during Wonderful World look in person? After multiple viewings on Flo it still just comes across as a jumbled mess to me.

I thought that came from another app on my computer via headphones, guess not!

Little hijacking of the audio feed after SCV with Crown Lady saying "Welcome to the Crown live.." then cutting out, lol.

I get the urge to yell "beef"..

I don't dislike electronics/amps as much as a I used to, but it should be illegal to have brass "playing" when everyone's horns are down and the brass players are off dancing.

I'd hate to be a Tuba player nowadays, just seems pointless with the thundering synth bass.

The way this announcer says "blue" is driving me nuts lol.

I'm a Crown brass nut, but this year's book to me "feels" like they don't play a lot and is too "technical" whenever they do. Even parts of the ballad I feel could be more legato, some notes held longer, and overall has some more dynamics.. Their show as a whole feels to have a lot of "dead space" to me. I'm not a perc/pit person, but other corps at least keep me engaged when it's a percussion-only section, but I zone out a lot more in Crown's show this year. Too many of those sections and they're too long. I lose all interest during the lengthy time the whole brass-does-rhythmic-gymnastics-things takes to set up and execute. Again, Crown's consistently my favorite corps, so don't jump on me for pointing out what I consider flaws in the design.. purely my opinion.

For me, the Boston Baritone and Crown Trumpet are the tops. BD's Piccolo Trumpet player is decent, but tends to overblow and not always get a light/clean picc sound (prob too much backpressure) imo (I play a bunch of picc so I'm prob more critical of it)

Well except this time... still great though, but missed on one of the flourishes after the 'solo' part..

This year's new compulsory body movement seems to be BD's "rock back and forth" movement that everyone seems to have copied..

I'm a sop/trumpet player, love all things brass, and love Crown's brass over the years (I can watch those lot vids of 2014 all day), but it just feels like they don't play a lot this year.. quite a letdown for me in that regard. Maybe they actually ARE playing a lot, but it just doesn't FEEL like it.. Once the head-cam and transcription videos come out after the season is over (I know some transcriptions are out now) and I play around with them I'll think differently, but it just feels like if I were to time the amount the brass plays they'd be among the lowest of the top 12 this year. Overall still an enjoyable show to me.

My friend is looking for 3 tickets for Saturday night only. He's not on the forums so I'll give you his contact info to do the purchase. Thanks!

Flo has no idea how to find a soloist do they..

Bluecoats' show is growing on me, but really dislike the ending.

Enjoyed BD much more than last time I saw them (which was like 2 weeks ago).. but still another show where the narration/voice adds absolutely nothing of value. At least for me it doesn't make it worse like most of the other narrated shows.

Can you hear the BD tubas in person? Their bass (high cam so can't tell if they have a bass player or just synth) is very overpowering. Seem like a pointless instrument nowadays to march.

Yeah its pretty awful for me now.