CDUB

Agreed. Turandot was special. Ever since then, the design staff has sent Phantom for a long walk in the woods. The design this year is what it is. I’m not going to degrade anyone for design this year under the circumstances. I am assuming that the staff this year is really using the show to help reinforce/re-teach fundamentals in preparation for next year. Is there an over abundance of guard members? Half of them seem to be prop attendants and not much more The focus this year (in my opinion) is on the wonderful music, which is exactly where it should be. Which brings me to the point I am hoping that Phantom’s staff will follow next year Adam’s after, even if they don’t read this (and they won’t). Please get back (competitively) to being Phantom. Don’t run from your identity, embrace it. Give us that rich, classical music with artful, clever (but not too cute) story telling. But please, no more demon-queen puppets, porn soundtracks, new-age garbage, or any other weirdness that has plagued Phantom for almost the last decade (I felt for the members). You aren’t BD or Vanguard—and you don’t need to be. You are Phantom. Be Phantom. Please.

The final measures need the metallic ornamental percussion (I don't know what they are called) to give it that last bit of sparkle.

I don't know about the "tear jerker of 2018," but the odds of it being the "grimace of 2018" are rising. I don't know why their design team needs to make everything so awkwardly complicated. For example, last year's show would have been miles better without the singing/screeching. The plagal cadence at the end was a thing of beauty--WAS a thing of beauty--until it was ruined by the "choir." The year before that, Stoned (or whatever), was a neat concept: statutes coming to life. But why the need to turn it into a Melo-drama about the depths of human emotions? Cadets: you are not the Blue Devils. Your trying to be is not wearing well. You have succeeded when you kept it simple and let the kids shine. Angels & Demons--amazing. 12.25--amazing (a show that has gotten more love over the years). Side x Side--amazing (despite the questionable color palette, but I get it). Being esoteric is not your thing. And that's ok. We want to be entertained, not lectured, and certainly not lectured through a mess of a design.

It is ironic that the corps that will perform a show that is supposedly predicated on the perils of self-absorption and not listening to others is led by a director who . . . is self-absorbed and . . . doesn’t listen to others! The GE for this show is going to be off the charts!

So this show is basically Cavies 2016 + Blue Knights 2017 + a dash of Mandarins 2017????

A DCI customer service rep just told me "late 2017/early 2018" for the release of the World Championship audio-video products. That sucks.

Please just do the powerful closing to the prologue to Mefistofele. You're the only corps that can pull this off. Beware: if you do it, and do it right, you will not only getting a rousing standing ovation at the end, but people will be sobbing with joy. As emotional as 2010-2012 were, this might take the case. Maybe you don't want that responsibility, but it'd be cool. Oh, and I can just see/hear the descending triplets in the mellos and low brass during some of the last leaps as the phrase heads to a cadence. Just do it. Please. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUUKRjhv678

Maybe.

Maybe, but let's remember that this activity is primarily about ENTERTAINMENT. It's not life or death--the show sounds/looks the same regardless of the numbers assigned after the fact.

-Fanfare for the common man -Also Sparach Zarasusthra -Everything changes -Adagio for strings -Elsa's -Appalachian spring -Almost anything by Shostakovich -Mahler's Resurrection Symphony (seriously, someone needs to do this) -All by myself -Grow til tall (will be posting separately about this) -Bohemian rhapsody -Nessun dorma I'm tired of typing on my phone ...

What was the intro music Bloo used this year, including the sampled singing plus the brass under the prop? I can't seem to find it in their show material, though maybe I missed it. Thanks in advance.

I didn't know that. With all the battle/duel/good guys vs bad guys-type shows we've been seeing, I have to think that Cadets will want to do West Side Story.

No. Chance.

Talk about visual demand. They had had to have had those covers from day one and waited until semis to unveil.

They need to stop it with the whole "overcoming some abstract impediment to happiness" theme we have seen now for the last few years. (That said, I'm still not sure what in the world the show was about this year, but it seemed like some sort of freedom from fantasy? Don't know.) Get back to playing beautiful music with a powerful hornline that turns on the waterworks in the stands. There are few corps who can do that--you can. So do it.

Thought about this today . . . It was so easy for me to offer that suggestion having never had the responsibility he had. So, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, dude.

It pays to go on last.

Did he ask, "Can you hear me now?" too soon?

They sound like us cutting all over these shows.

Love the Marines, but we just spent 4 hours listening to drum corps. We are in no need of march-in music.

SO MUCH NOISE

Tonight is both my favorite and least favorite night of the season. By far.

I KNEW they were going to add something to that closer as a cherry on top

BD rotating diagonal box was not clean. Multiple bending lines. Eek.

Thought SCV was going to give us an extra GE pop tonight with a new treat. A great run nonetheless.