MidWAmericanArts

I’m going to have to eat my words a bit. But before I do, I don’t think judging 24 hours apart is an accurate indicator between 2 groups. That being said… Judges 100% were comparing the groups on both nights. If you look at each judge’s scores, they never repeated a score in content or achievement between 2 nights. They were clearly intending for their scores to be an accurate representation to compare both nights. But again, I don’t think it’s accurate, and you’re technically judging 1 group that had 24 hours more to practice.

I could’ve sworn that you were talking up Crown’s show design in late June/early July. I must be wrong and mixing you up with somebody else. My mistake!

.

I’m doubling down here and hope this doesn’t come off as rude, but I feel like there is a pretty strong correlation between people who think that Crown show is one of the best designs of all time and people who spent June and early July talking about how Crown’s GE was going to be off the charts this year.

So, let’s assume this is true (even though I strongly disagree). Why did Crown never have another design near this level?

I’m genuinely curious, in what ways do you think it was head of its time?

At different shows on different nights… less interesting

Woah. E=MC2 as one of the best designed shows ever? I’m curious how many people share that opinion. I think Crown had some intense demand, an insane hornline and colorguard, and some superb cleanliness. Was it one of the best designed shows ever? I wouldn’t place it in my top 30.

If a high school marching band did this, I’d probably enjoy it. But it’s just like… you’re Carolina Crown!! Top tier drum corps with stellar musicians and color guard, insane performance levels. Then, you pair it with that show. Why?! I want Crown to be amazing, I really do!!

Less fabric than Inferno, but every use (maybe not the fluegel soloist) was meaningful, memorable, and fit so well. The pop of the first flyover before the haunting minor chord, the hellscape in the ballad, the chaos movement in the closer that gets covered by the flyover to only reveal a crystal clear crown logo, the ending ascension… I’ve got several gripes about that show, but it was one of the best uses of fabric ever. This year’s Crown… I give the 2nd movement a B- on the fabric funhouse and an F for the ballad. Man, Blue Devils would get thrashed by Crown fans if they didn’t change the visual feel of their ballad for 90 seconds and stood mostly still. A real headscratcher.

I hope they come up with better use of the fabric in that ending. It looked like they were building to a cool moment and then they just left me there.

So disappointing. That music book was to die for!

This is my first full show of the night. Is the audio a little off or is Crown feeling a little flat?

My favorite since Side by Side (despite the visual design)

You know, as a BD fan, I’d love for them to win the championship, but what a great ending to the year if BAC takes it. If they do take it, I hope they only pass BD at finals. That’d be such an incredible moment.

I think you may have responded this without reading our chain of replies. I don’t believe it will, either. We were talking about what gets rewarded, he thought that fan reaction (specifically the people seeing it for the first time) should influence scores. I was arguing that it would lead to saturation of those tarp moments. Anyways, no harm, no foul, I just think you might have not understood the context.

Oh yeah, 100% agreed. If it makes sense, I’m all for it. But it really doesn’t work with Crown this year. However, you hear the crowd lose their mind at every show when that moment comes up. I don’t want to see moments like that get rewarded.

Easily one of their worst designs 😂 Lots of cool and memorable moments. The first 90 seconds are to die for. The ballad was great. I even loved the trombones. But the flow and pacing of that show weren’t very good. Lots of visual moments that didn’t feel right. Really disappointed with the ending. One of those years that BD was more enjoyable (to me) in their music book than their visual book. A lot of head scratching moments (the Beiber section felt like a throw away waste of time) Ok, I want to refresh my memory. I’ll have to watch this one again today. Downside Up was such a blast of a show, but it was stinkin dirty to be placing that high. I just don’t think BD had a strong enough design, nor did Crown.

Meh… I don’t want to watch DCI become saturated with “let’s get a giant tarp that we can put our heads through! That’ll boost our scores!” Glad there are some who enjoy that, but if you start rewarding that, this activity is going to look a lot different (worse) IMO. I get wanting to entertain the first time watchers, but you’re not ever going to get deep productions that way. If things are always geared towards the first time fan, get ready for a rehash on everything we’ve already seen. I don’t like this word, but you want “innovation”, right?

So interesting to me… I’m the BD homer and you and I disagree on most fronts. It’s hysterical to me that you love As Dreams Were Made On, because I’d put that one down as a bottom 3 for BD in the 2010s. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose!

Keep in mind, it could be that this panel wasn’t as Bluecoats-friendly, maybe they didn’t have as good of a run (I thought they were great on Flo, but I’m at the mercy of a recording). They lost the battle today, but there is plenty of time left in this season. Tonight could be the outlier or maybe last night was. Keep the faith!

Oh my god… I’m sorry, I just can’t. Have a good night.

No kidding. His scores don’t fall in line with what most other judges have said throughout the season. And then, looking at ordinals for content, he goes from Blue Devils to SCV to Phantom Regiment. That’s… unique.

1. I think you’re way off. 2. Content isn’t just how challenging a caption is. It’s showing off a variety of skills, creating a good product. If I wrote an English paper and used a thesaurus to make all of my words longer/more complicated, it doesn’t mean that the paper is a quality product. If the thing you’re doing is hard but doesn’t work, you’re not getting full credit.

You know, there are some years that BD doesn’t have a gold level design, but they just edge out the competition and take the championship. That is not this year. They have a superb design/program and are insanely talented. For Boston to (potentially) beat them at their best… Unreal!