illinidale

They sit still in chairs on the field. And win visual. Their bass drums float while the players spin upside down. They have two quad lines, one marches googoltoms, and the other googolplextoms.

I understand. DCP is so full of self-appointed experts it's hard to tell who is stating an opinion and who is stating a fact. Now which of the details is it that you have all your hopes resting on?

Sorry, there will not be any drum or guard angles this year. There were no cameras for this, and the angle cam director was in the stands. Video recordings were made in HD. I've seen the HD recordings and they are unbelievably sharp and the detail is fantastic. I'm not quite sure if these will be offered to the public, or how they would be offered. The sound is also fantastic, and it's not very obvious that they were playing indoors.

Very comfortable stadium, with bad acoustics for drum corps. Indy as a town is OK I guess, but why would I look forward to another year there? Without Finals there I'd never visit -- and they know it -- thus the sweetheart deal with DCI.

Thanks for your kind comments in the review. I march with the Strikers (Website) and I was surprised to be in the competition -- figuring we would just be in exhibition. We're a parade drumline, playing cadences and funk beats to backing tracks like "Brickhouse" and "Wipeout". No guard, no horns. But what the heck we morphed our parade routine into a floor routine. We are not a corps and don't try to be -- although of course we want to drum well. The real objective is to have fun and entertain the crowd. Only Northeraires, Lakeshoremen, and Royalaires were full drum corps -- having guard, drums, and horns. Classic Cavaliers are close, but have no guard. South Shore Drill Team is a comp guard. South Shore performed with several ensembles of dancers/color guard and some soloists filling in during costume changes. Every one was really excellent. I have always loved this group, they are clean in execution, dance great, and throw in enough tricks to entertain the audience. Plus, they are a real youth activity. They don't really fit the SDCA charter either but no matter -- I would have voted for them.

They should only show what real people see. Like all the fans getting popcorn during Cadets. Or the back of that jamoke in front of me yelling "Go Spinners" during BD's bass solo.

I talked to the composer this past weekend, and asked why he wouldn't release the sync. rights. He replied - in his halting English - "I no like their hats."

Hey, how 'bout I pull that slide-whistle slider out to max., then drill me a coupla holes at strategic locations and add a few little lever thingies. Cavaliers could finally play Stars and Stripes for Aki without that obnoxious xylophone doing the piccolo part.

Cadets know how to clean the heck out of their shows. They have great horns, great drummers, and great spinners. In '07 it was too bad their show was overwhelmed by lame narration, they might well have won if they had just turned off the "blah blah blah". Things are getting tougher in '08. If Cadets turn off their narration this year they might beat Crown.

I don't agree that Cadets should have won. The most important job for the judges on Saturday is to pick the best corps, and they did that. Devils sold their show the best. And also I felt that the corps ended up in the right placement order, with perhaps a quibble here or there on recap rankings. Cadets had a great drum corps with fine performers, but I agree with earlier posters that they were held back by the overbearing, lame vocals. Just shut up and play! -- they had a great musical ensemble and some cool drill well marched. So why blather on and on with bad narration? The crowd wanted to like the Cadets, you could hear the appreciation for the sound and drill, but you could also hear the collective groan when Napoleon started his monologue. If they had killed 80% of the narration early season they would have had the crowd behind them all year, and with this strong corps they might have seen a higher finish at finals.

'02 Cavaliers Best horn blend I've ever heard.

Couple comments for Iplaytimpani and others: Pit amplification makes recording the corps with a good balance very, very difficult. With amps cranked to project to the box you will get overpowering pit down low. The sound engineers for the DCI recordings, DVDs, and ESPN show are real professionals who are experts in this field. Many of them also happen to have drum corps background and they are passionate for the activity. Post production is top notch, keeping in mind the limits on the amount of money DCI can spend and time-to-market constraints. Delayed shipment will absolutely result in fewer sales. If you put the mics in the stands you'll get more crowd and less corps. "Go Silvia" during Cavaliers, and even more idiots trying to get their voices on the DVDs. Mics are directed for solos (Shotgun mics) and they are not always on. Just 'cause you see it in front of the tymp doesn't mean it's on. This happens every time they set up the mics. If you are a recording engineer, you could send DCI a bid to produce the sound recordings for DCI Finals. Give it a shot... Dale

Great review -- thank you! I haven't seen several or the corps so I like it when people say what they really think -- just like you would tell your old drum corps buddies over a cold one after a show. (My first smiley ever:) And I also liked the second candid review mixed in the replies. Simple and straight to the point. Keep 'em coming ! Thanks.

-- Responding to original post -- Cavaliers have been close to the top for several years, and reputation never hurts, but you can't really ride it very far if the performance is lacking. Corps with good reputations (including Cavaliers and Scouts) have taken their lumps during their down years. Scouts did a great job in Normal, and are backing up their usual exciting show with better execution this year. Thus they are within a couple points of Cavaliers. But entertainment is still only part of the judging criterion and overall I'd say the judges in Normal got all the placements and spreads pretty much right. Just my opinion, of course, and if you like Scouts better that's ok with me. I've watched, marched, taught, and judged drum corps. Judges are human and of course some are better than others at remaining neutral, but I have found that overall they work pretty diligently at a thankless job to try to help the corps get better, and to make the competition fair.

I'm a Cavalier FMM so my bias should be noted. I also have buddies in both these corps so I try to be fair about areas of potential improvement without being harsh. Beautiful night for drum corps, maybe even a little cool for the spectators. I got there late, watched Cavaliers drum line warm up, then sat on the 50 yard line 4 rows from the top for Southwind and Cavaliers. Southwind -- There is no yellow in the corps uniforms, just black and white, with an neat tall hat accessory. The black and white works fine except for the snares and tenors, where you can't pick out the sticks because they get lost in the uniform. Guard uniforms looked silly up close but I liked them fine on the field. The opening minute has the corps widely spread and this produced severe phasing problems. I couldn't find a consistent pulse anywhere. Finally the first hit comes (a bit too much development I thought) and they make a nice "here we are" statement with good color impact from the flags. In fact, the guard had nice work throughout the show with good use of bright flags to emphasize musical hit points. Unfortunately the telegraphed the oncoming hits too much which reduced the impact. Drill was very dirty as can be expected for the first show, but I was pleasantly impressed with the horns. A long way to go yet but they seem to have a good start. Drums had a neat feature where the basses play one hand on the tenors with the tenors playing the other hand. The snare feature should get tossed, poorly written with all kinds of interplay man-to-man which didn't work at all. Snares are carrying a hi-hat which they had too loose so it didn't have a crisp sound -- sounded like a lot of hash instead of tight beats. The best part of the show is the bacchanale which got the crowd going pretty good but didn't last long enough. Unfortunately, they are not yet generating a lot of crowd interest with the other music. Cavaliers -- Cavaliers open with a 30 second fanfare which sounds pretty good, but isn't near loud enough. It was difficult to see what the drill was doing even from the top of the Oswego high school stadium, but I could see that there are several classic Cavalier moves (4 man rotating/sliding pins etc.). Cavaliers clearly write their program for bigger stadiums and the high cam on the DVD is usually the best vantage point. The second tune with its baseball references was different for the Corps (in a good way) in that it had a little whimsical touch, something that can be tough to portray but they pulled it off. I saw the tenors do a Sammy Sosa heart thump, and at the end the corps watches a virtual home run sail out onto Waveland Ave. The third tune is the Fire, and it think it needs to be even more scary and sad. They midvoices play a snippet of Amazing Grace from atop ladders, but it's too little... They need to squeeze more emotion from this piece. The blues piece is great fun and takes the Cavaliers into musical areas that are usually perceived as Blue Devils' or Madison's forte. But when you have the talent in the corps that the Cavaliers have there are no limits. Watch the tenor line race forward, dodging ladders, right before their excellent feature. Overall, the show is not as easily engaging as 007 last year, probably because you haven't really heard the music before. It also switches musical styles more substantially than Cavaliers' shows have for several years. A great start to the '05 season. Dale