MikeRapp

What is the lowest single caption score for a gold medalist?

Best: Vanguard and Bluecoats Worst: Madison and Cadets

Bluecoats. Wow, just wow. What a crazy show!

All these kids deserve to have a great summer. Only one corps can get the gold, only three can medal. My hope is that as we add more World Class corps to the tour, there will be more unique opportunities for the kids to have a fun and rewarding experience. The scouts kids don’t deserve to have to carry the weight of history. The slums need to be suppportive during the season and then raise hell after the season.

I’m just not a fan of the Cavaliers show designs over the last three years.

It’s likely gonna be Bluecoats vs SCV for Gold. BD will take the bronze (remarkable that this would be considered a controversial statement!) and I wouldn’t be surprised if Boston edges out Crown for fourth given their guard and percussion scores. Crown may be able to sustain a lead over Boston down the stretch due to their brass scores, but something has to evolve in the last third of the Crown show that we haven’t yet seen.

Good question. But every year it needs to be said because a lot of people here look at the score is getting tighter and think that the placements are getting tighter. It’s the nature of a close to scoring system.

Blue Devils are the best thing to happen to drum corps. They set a high bar, especially in the staff and creative culture areas. They showed how to sustain greatness. We wouldn't have Crown without BD, probably wouldn't have Bluecoats competing for medals every year.

I do think the relative placements between Crown, Boston and Cavaliers will be really tight. In the end I think Crown will win out and finish fourth, but only because no one will overtake their brass caption. Crown's show is thee weakest of the three conceptually, but they will continue to layer and add new things. They desperately need a new ending that ties this thing together, not sure it's gonna happen. Of the three, Boston has the most legs. They are the strongest overall of the group.

Everyone needs to remember that the closer scores get to 100, the tighter the scores have to get. It’s the nature of the system. If you get to the mid-80s and you see gaps of more than 1.5 points, it becomes very difficult to overtake the corps ahead of you. The gaps will close, but the relative placements tend to stick. It’s just the nature of how DCI scoring works, like it or not.

I grew up near Toledo when Glassmen were alive. Are you from Ohio?

This is why Scouts seem doomed. They have alums who could help, but rather cling to their past experience and are unwilling to even consider change. They would rather see the corps not even make finals than do something different than their increasingly ancient past. And again for the record, Scouts were one of the corps that got me into drum corps. I would love to see them return to relevance. But not with these guys who sit around and brag about what studs they used to be back when dci shows bore no resemblance whatsoever to the spectacles they are today.

You’re right. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing, it’s working great.

Crown isn’t finishing ahead of Bluecoats , SCV or Bd in visual. They can be extremely proficient but their show currently isn’t in the same league as these three. Crown will always compete for the Ott, and they are always going to be strong in visual in general, but the top three shows this year are really special.

Crown won’t fall behind Cavaliers. No way.

Scouts are a proud organization and rightly so. The expectations there are different than most World Class corps. When your on the field product isn’t up to current World Class standards, you should expect there to be anger and strife midseason, because that’s when those things become painfully obvious. The kids see the scores, they read the boards, they hear the chatter, and the see the empty lines at the souvenir booths. These are kids, not adults. They are going to react as any kid would. While I don’t like it, the fact is that when you are succeeding on the field, people are happy. When you are struggling, people are unhappy. The kids and the parents put enormous trust in the leadership of these corps. When that leadership fails you, it hurts. The expectations in Madison are to be contenders, not fighting to the final weekend to make Finals.

But you are an all male group. You can’t pitch membership in an all-male group without pitching the benefits of an all male group. I don’t think kids see the benefits.

It’s so much harder. That’s inarguable. You’re talking about recruiting three times as many potential members to fill the slots. And a lot of the guys are going to scouts no matter what. I just don’t see how they can continue the way they’re going much longer. I realize that going coed would be a huge risk. But you can’t continue to dig your heels in and say, somehow we’re going to magically out recruit these world-class cores that are destined for contending for a metal because we have history on our side. Kids today couldn’t care less about history. Most of the Madison alumni are old enough to be these kids grandparents now. I daresay most of these kids never step foot in a Boy Scout troop. Simply saying we have a rich history doesn’t mean squat to 90% of the best kids who want to compete at the highest level.Simply saying we have a rich history doesn’t mean squat to 90% of the best kids who want to compete at the highest level.

I want to be clear that I am a huge fan of Madison. They were one of the groups that got me in love with drum Corps. That’s why it kills me to see them struggling so badly. I grew up in Boy Scouts, took two of my boys through the activity, I am not in anyway on aware of the history of the organization. But at some point Madison has to decide that it is Going to be a competitive organization by today’s standards. It’s not working, and my fear is they can only go on like this for a little while longer before finances catches up with them permanently.

I mean, just look at the great female players at bluecoats, blue Devils, crown, SCV And Boston. Go ahead and throw cadets, blue nights, blue stars and Crossman in as well. These are world class athletes who have years of experience winning medals. Not a single one of these girls can’t even audition for Scouts. If you think this doesn’t hurt not playing and marching ability, then you’re kidding yourself.

Well it’s a simple fact that not being coed limits your recruitment by 50%.And everybody who does this knows it’s not about having numbers, it’s having the best, most experienced members. There’s no question that scouts do not have the talent of the top-tier corps. Personally, I would not march in an all-male corps. whatever benefits there are two a brotherhood don’t match having coed participation for me. I am certainly not everyone, but I would bet I am the norm. So if you narrow your recruitment options by not just all males, but all males who don’t want to march with females, you’ve got a pretty small number .

The thing is, people buy souvenirs to tell people they love a certain corps. Their last two shows have been gaudy and weird. So they basically didn’t get either the traditional fan or the cool fan. The cool fan is buying BD and Bluecoats. They could easily do some little things that wink to tradition, like always forming the Fleur de Lis somewhere in the show, or perhaps breaking out in part of their chorus. Those are the cookies that make them unique. But play your ##### off first, with a hard book, and then worry about style. Find a theme that you can get behind. Maybe it’s a merge between BK, Troppers and Coats. I don’t know. But Bluecoats could have stuck with “tradition” and never sniffed a medal. They changed in a fun and tasteful way. In a cool way. Cadets, it waits to be seen how they will grow from their past. They will likely finish as low as they have in the last two decades this year. They have not found their voice yet. I personally think Scouts needs to go coed. There is one Cavaliers and they have managed to pull themselves up. I don’t know that Scouts can do that in enough time as it would take to save the finances of the corps.

DCI is now, first and foremost, a show concept activity that accentuates a cohesive concept built around caption performances. It’s too easy to say let’s get out there and your “out there” is Mad Max. Heartbeat has a concept, but they don’t have the design or arrangements to be Blue Knights. It takes confidence and restraint to build a great show, whether it be a music concert, a stage performance, or drum corps. You don’t just run around the stage with whacky hair and call that a concept. People can say what they wish, but Blue Devils themselves wouldn’t medal doing the Mad Max show. Scouts need to do what Bluecoats did. Look at what they are traditionally outstanding at, twist it, and run with that. Stop trying to be the ###### circus.

He is a scary genius. It takes huge balls of brass to write something this demanding on all levels. I don’t know that this show could get or be more complex or more frenetic. They really are putting it all on the table this year.

That company front in the ballad. Holy #####. What a rush it must be to play that.