i think this year's show is performed very well but don't really understand who the audience is for the show?. my wife is a big JCS fan and loves it, get's all the movie and musical references, but unfortunately in comparison to the 1999 show the ending seems doesn't seem to be doing the corps any favors, it references the best part of 1999 but then meanders into a medley of lesser known JCS music. It's performed well and I feel for my skinny scout brothers doing there best to put on a great show every night.
To be fair I feel the same way about many of the other shows (After a wonderful the wonderful Pines of Rome opening by the Cadets their show devolves into a musical menagerie that I quickly lose interest in, Same thing with Blue Knights. some interesting moments here and there, music that I kinda recognize, but whatever they are doing doesn't carry my attention or interest at all)
Overall I keep hearing from corps complaints about how expensive touring is and how hard it is "to keep up with the Jones's". but how much more money does it cost to be competitive? $3000 for a summer is quite a bit of money. If I were a young music ed student who wanted to be a band director I could easily see it as an important experience in my future education, but probably might only be able to march one summer. Also back in the day I marched drum corps because it was the least expensive of all the collegiate-graduate level music training programs that I could participate in. These days you can still attend Round Top or Aspen for under $1500 (if you pass the audition), and besides that a student could get weekly private lessons with any principal player from a major symphony for under $3000 for the summer. At the end of the day it's too bad that the price to participate in drum corps has more than doubled because at these prices there are many activities that a young musician prospective teacher might want to consider besides marching in a drum corps for more than one summer.