2muchcoffeeman

One Troop tradition that is public happens each June 11 at 11 a.m. The corps, staff and volunteers assemble, face toward Casper, and the horn line plays a traditional arrangement of "Battle Hymn." Corps founder Jim Jones was laid to rest on June 11. What I love about the tradition is that it happens during preseason. There is no crowd. There is no applause. There is almost no one there to watch them. There is only the corps, and the music, and the respect.

Well, it would mean that you're no longer joining a drum corps. You're joining DCI. And that means DCI would be in charge of everything related to your drum-corps experience, right down to your equipment, tour housing, food truck, instructional staff . . . .

Troopers entering the field

Academy in the house

Even the Twitters are oddly quiet

Quick video snippet from the show. But which corps?

Genesis gets its Dorothy on

Interesting to watch tonight: Colts score has been bouncing around. Troopers' score trend has been less volatile. At Minneapolis, Colts immediately followed Troopers and scored about 2.5 behind Troop. Last night, in separate shows, Colts scored within a point of Troopers. Tonight, Troop immediately follows Colts -- one of the last possible permutations. Judges have been looking at this matchup from every which way. Will be interesting to see how it sorts out tonight.

By the look of that stadium, I'd say the DMs will be in the stands tonight.

Tuesday, July 16, 7 p.m. Bentonville, Ark., High School stadium Show website Weather Day: Sunny to partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 86F. Evening: A stray thunderstorm is possible through the evening. Some clouds. Low 68F. Winds light and variable. Order of appearance: Music City Genesis Colts Troopers Academy Blue Stars Crossmen Carolina Crown

I know the feeling

Correction: Troop took GE visual, not GE music, from Blue Stars. Troop also took overall GE from Blue Stars.

Okay, thanks. Memo to DCI: It's a website. It's digital. It can be updated at any time, unlike a printed program. Why let other websites steal views from you with more current information? Anyway, on with the show. EDIT: Turns out the DCI site had the correct lineup after all. Strange order of appearance.

So help me out: Why is the order of performance on the DCI site different from the order of performance on the FromThePressBox site?

The entirety of the DCP World Class Corps Discussions forum, jammed into a single thread.

Monday, July 15, 7 p.m. Central Leemon Field @ McKendree University Performance order: Music City Pioneer Troopers Blue Stars Academy BD Crown Phantom Regiment Does that performance order look wacky to anyone else?

Old music is one thing. "Retro" programming is another. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is a far more contemporary composition than much of the music being played on the field this year by Phantom, Madison, Crown, Blue Devils, Oregon Crusaders, and others. Yet if you put the 1982 Sky Ryders and the 2013 Blue Devils on the same field today, which show would be more retrograde? Which show would be more contemporary? It's not the music. It's what you do with the music. Thus, Troopers can play a tune that is about 200 years old ("Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us," now known as "Battle Hymn of the Republic"), and do it in a way that is completely in step with current DCI standards. Vanguard can play the music of "Les Miserables," which is about 40 years younger than "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," yet still create an air of a long-ago time. Phantom can bring a 2,000-year-old story (Spartacus) to life with music that was composed after "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and make it feel both ancient and contemporary -- and, by the way, win a championship with it. In 2010, Madison reached back into its catalog and opened with a song that A) is older than "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," B) it first played in 1974, and C) was first performed by a drum corps in 1950. How retro can you get? That show returned Madison to finals, after they had missed it the previous year. It's not the music. It's what you do with the music. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is an iconic piece of drum-corps music because (in my mind, at least) Hutch owned it and defined it so exclusively. It was completely of a piece with that era of drum corps. If anyone else were to pick up the same arrangement today and put it on the field (with, God forbid, the same rainbow! Ack!), it would definitely come off as "retro," no matter how well it was played. Especially it if were staged with the same visual approach used in 1982. However, I could imagine a corps such as Crown picking up the tune, arranging it according to contemporary drum-corps standards, and matching it with modern visual concepts. And I have no doubt they would make "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" a new icon for a new time.

By the time we get to DCI East, if not sooner, I have a feeling Troopers and the rest will be chasing Spirit, not Blue Stars. Blue Stars are a solid No. 12 and on the verge of moving into No. 11.

No corps looks as purposeful standing still as SCV.

So I guess when Bluecoats spin American-style flags, it's all good.

Yeah, maybe so. The OP was fishing for music that will forever be associated with a particular corps in a particular season. I think both selections fit. It would be ludicrous to suggest there is any kind of back-to-basics movement afoot in DCI, but it is interesting to note, for example, how Madison's return to roots in 2010 has propelled Scouts back into contention. Troop is trying something similar this year. Imagine if BD tried something similar in 2014. Hot, swinging jazz charts played, and marched, with unmatched skill.

Yep. This one arrangement did more to redefine DCI than any other. An icon not only to Cadets, but to the whole enterprise. One I haven't seen mentioned: Sky Ryders / "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" Phantom: I think you have to say "Spartacus" because PR helped reshape the whole idea of a drum-corps program with it in '81, then won a championship with it in '08. SCV: For me, "YPGtDC" contains the highest concentration of Vanguard DNA. Equal parts majesty and subtlety. For some corps, I have difficulty picking out the most quintessential music. Cavies, for instance. Is it the swashbuckling Cavies ("Softly")? The classical Cavies (Planets)? The Saucedo Cavies ("Frameworks")? Same problem with BD. To me, "One More Time, Chuck Corea" will be the iconic sound of Devils. Their '82 performance was pure anger on the field. I've never heard any corps play anything with such urgency and musicality at the same time. It was bloodthirsty, yet cool. That's BD. Or, at least, it was. These days, I can't point to any piece of music that defines them. If there's anything "iconic" about BD these days, it's their aloofness. They ought to print T-shirts that say "Blue Devlis: We Dare You" and be done with it.

I'm sure Bluecoats would say they need every tenth of a point they can get. The Troopers would say the same; however, you can make the argument that points are more precious to Troopers than they are to Bluecoats because Troop is competing for a spot in finals, where 0.05 points could make the difference. Bloo is performing on Saturday no matter what. Thus, even if judges also are giving Bluecoats a hard time about their flags, Bloo can better afford to ignore the complaints. Troop is in a no-win position. Either they get rid of the flag, keep the judges happy and hurt their GE; or they keep the flag, keep their GE, and risk the wrath of judges.

Well, Troop is going to have to work just that much harder to get people up on their feet because they've removed the red, white and blue flag from the show -- the flag that was the continuous thread in the program, getting passed from guard to musician to guard, and ultimately rising up from the cauldron of gold at the center of the sunburst. Apparently, some judge decided such use of a flag that resembles Old Glory is disrespectful. Troopers replaced the flag with their traditional a gold-and-white 11th Ohio Cavalry flag. The loss of GE was noticeable, according to reports from the stands. Compared to previous shows in which the red, white and blue flag was used, Mankato's crowd was flat, and didn't respond to the sunburst with nearly the same enthusiasm. For the life of me I can't understand how anyone would consider the Troopers' show generally, and the way it cradles and lifts and honors the flag throughout the show specifically, to be disrespectful. Just what does the DCI community want from this corps? It finally gives the activity the show it has been yearning for, only to be told they're insulting America.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?