corpstrength

61.20 crossmen

58.10 troopers

32.40 Cincinnati tradition

DMs coming out

Just finished. Cadets were head and shoulders in front tonight.

BS is going to have to grow on me as the season goes on. A bit unfair since they had the worst conditions by far. Cavies on now and no rain!

All of it, I'd say. Although DCI may be obligated to have INT by the venue. Blue Stars taking the field.

Rain coming down now

Crossmen were certainly interesting and "in your face" - both in terms of the sound and theme. The pit is about 5 yards on the field and the MMs are often in front blowing the doors off. To carry off the "air" theme, there are butterfly flags and even paper airplanes. Coming off a tiny bit cheesy right now but certainly a ton of time to improve. Amazingly, INT is taking the field with the threat of bad weather. Madison next.

It is a really great venue. Troopers got a big reaction. Great brass sound. The vocalist had very little breath support after the opener - they should think about having her do less at the beginning (although I'm sure that will improve with time). I think design will be the key going forward. Crossmen on now.

Unfortunately they are still in a break. Wasting a good 20 mins of dry weather! Troop guard just now coming on.

Here's hoping. Taking two of my boys (5 and 3) down to the show and they are very excited. They've been "practicing" for days now...so I hope the show can go on.

Nice Wizard of Oz trick, FN staff!

Looking forward to seeing all 12 corps Saturday. One of the first years I've gone to finals looking forward to every show.

All I'm saying is that it was not live yesterday. I was there. There was also a time when the staff messed up and the entire JFK moon quote was done in JFK's voice. The narrator looked...confused and mouthed the beginning where it is normally his voice but you only heard JFK. If he was performing live, you would have heard him overlap.

Agreed...the performance is great. On the narration, I no longer believe it is live (at least it was not during the last couple of days of rehearsal). During a break, the staff was messing with the volume of the narrator's recorded voice and FDR's voice during the "the only thing we have to fear" quote -- the narrator was not around. Also, the narrator had to yell something up to the staff a couple of times during rehearsal...his mic was not on. It also sounds exactly the same every time. I know that it is, in fact, the narrator's voice, but I do not believe he is performing live.

I keep telling myself that they were just trying out the Capitol backdrop and will not really use it (there are holes cut in the material for wind, which may not be necessary in a dome???). I hope that's right. I could live with just about everything else -- the hoisting of the Capitol is just a bridge too far for me.

The GE and Visual panel is basically the same as Allentown, where Coats beat Cadets in GE but Cadets won Visual (over Coats) by a slightly bigger margin.

After "flipping" the stage panel....

Here it is....

They still use the old "drapes." This new version is flipped down as part of the final push. There is also a 30 ft. (Approx) tall backdrop of the Capitol Building spanning from 42 yard line to 42 yard line that gets hoisted up at the end...not kidding. Wonderful performance by the kids the last couple of nights though.