sop sop sop sop sop

George Hopkins is legally changing his name to Booty Master

Predictions, you say? 1. Bluecoats, with a show called KILT, probably a 99.75. 2. Blue Stars, don't have a show in mind but i'm imagining uniforms with jetpacks, 97.3. 3. Santa Clara Vanguard, "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round," 97.0 4. The Blue Devils, "California Girls; The Life and Times of Katy Perry," 95.3 5. The Cadets, "Spongebob on Turf," 94.5 6. The Academy, "Mitochondria: The Powerhouse of the Cell," 94.1 7. Carolina Crown, "Debt from Student Loans," 93.0 8. Blue Knights, *Clicking noise* *Clicking noise* *Loud whooping*, 92.9 9. Cavaliers, "Mulan on Turf," 90.2 10. Madison Scouts, "The Napoleon Complex," 89.9 11. Crossmen, "The Colts," 89.0 12. Boston, "Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus," 88.2

A review from the Big, Loud, and Live Thing....... Let's start from the beginning! The Academy: Extremely entertaining, fun drill. Wish they could be a bit louder. Excellent staging at the end of the ballad with the Mary Poppins umbrella pop, I had them over Troopers (sorry not sorry) Troopers: The announcers made a point to mention the volume of this hornline, but they didn't seem to deliver (granted I was sitting at the movies, so who really knows). I think having the guard/vocal soloist sprint around the field before singing is a tactical error. A couple of nice brass moments that rung around the big oil can. Colts: This show is fun, got some laughs out of the theater crowd. The opening drill statement with the gunshot and dead body is brilliant. I personally enjoyed the story telling and the electronic sample from the Twin Peaks soundtrack. One of my personal favorites, brass had some bite, percussion had some jams, guard seemed to be missing sometimes minus the soloists. The dead guard soloist had realistic corpse eyes lol Crossmen: Clean and stuff, I guess. Best female vocal soloist of the night, and the guard was on fire (I'm happy the numbers reflected this). Brass was beautiful during the ballad part in front of the pit, but not that loud (might be a mic issue, DCI probably wasn't prepared to mic a hornline so close to the front side line). Again, some really good ringing sounds reverberating about the stadium. Also cool percussion moments on the front tarp. Overall pretty flat though... Blue Stars: Surprisingly disappointed, and I love this corps. My main problem was the lack of clarity in the brass book. There were times when the melody/harmony/rhythmic/whatever lines were hardly discernible, and on the move it sounded kind of sludgy. Visual performance was not particularly stellar either, I'm mostly blaming the show design/staging. I thought there would be a lot to improve on over the course of the season based on what I saw at the tour premier, but maybe I was wrong... Design staff needs to focus more on cohesive stuff that works, less sloppy drill writing would be nice too, something that would showcase rather than diminish a talented member base. Boston: Here's the deal, though. I did not have Boston ahead of Blue Stars, despite my qualms. I did not get any emotional response from this show. The kids are performing great, but the field is terribly cluttered. There is too much going on, not in a good way. Guard was a little on fire, but otherwise bland. Madison: Squeaky clean, I can see why they might have beaten the Cavies. Bass drum moments are nice, still can't stand that bleepin Moses part but that's on design staff. Again, not much response from me... Cavaliers: I LOVE THE OPENING STATEMENT. Instant chills. Did not care for vocal solo. Brass was my favorite part of this show, I can see why the guard got dogged score-wise. Pham Regment: Okay, they are pretty good. They perform the inferno out of their show, visually rather clean, nice brass moments. Just again, real gimmicky show design that doesn't make me want to stand up and cheer. They previewed the showing with a clip of Phantom in 2005, which got me real excited. Something about 2015 just is... different... design wise, that is. And I'm a young guy, so no I don't want G bugles back or anything... Blue Knights: Innovative! Minus stealing guard weapons from Marian Catholic, but w/e. I love the mirror props, they are genius! It looks like members are literally disappearing, not just running behind an extremely forced eyesore. Drill was fun, I don't see how they scored so low in visual analysis, but I guess I'm not doing the judging. What I loved the most was the flow of the show, how non-traditional it was. The opener started growing like it was going to get big real fast, but died down for a minute. Brass didn't open up until later, which I appreciate from a design standpoint. And those kiddos can PLAY. Percussion and guard also very intriguing. One of two shows that actually made me think for myself instead of being a gimmicky force-feed of ideas and themes. SCV: My favorite recent SCV show. Keyboard opening is flawless. Drill was not as exciting as I expected from all of the hype on here (this was my first read). Theremin was nifty, and some cool electronic sample moments. Baritone soloist was the true wow factor in the show, imo. Also the flag poles that lit up were a cool and unexpected effect. Percussion was FLAWLESS, cliche I know. Bluecoats? I forgot the order: Like, this show is real cool. But is it really that cool? A clear step up in performance quality from the rest of the previous corps. But how many backwards attitudes can you do in one show? Brass was extraordinary, percussion was exceptional as well. Just not a super interesting show all of the time, especially in the opener between big moments. Closer also does nothing for me emotionally... Crown: Really good, don't get me wrong. I think they deserved second though (barring all penalties), or maybe even third? One of the more gimmicky shows, but performed with a ton of passion. It's just, like, Dante's Mt. Nacheesemo, not Dante's Inferno. Brass was pretty amazing, tied for volume and face blasting with Cadets but a touch cleaner. Guard had a couple of drops and a couple of REALLY obvious errors, are they really undeniable like we are saying they are? I understand bad shows happen, and it was a good run for the guard mostly, but not the 100/100 that is being called for. Gold tarp, while a gimmick, is really blizzing cool. Cadets: Sorry, I irrationally love this show. So much anger and power in the music, my favorite percussion book. Guard choreo/writing is weak, but they perform it well. French horns are still genius. Black uniforms are the bomb dot com. Maybe a little less counting and this would be my favorite show of the season. Brass was so loud! Loved it. BD: WHAT A SHOW. I loved this, and they deserved the win in my opinion. Crisp brass, the Sweeney Todd moment was flawless and I wanted to cry tears of joy and throw all of my first borns at the theater screen. I would literally build a time machine to have a first born child fifty times so I could throw fifty babies. Guard popping out of the books at the top was genius. The show was gimmicky on a surface level, but there was a ton going on, so many interactions to watch. I did see a couple guard problems here too, though, so Crown winning does not anger me or anything. K Pop section was brilliant, it came out of nowhere. I love this corps because they tie together a ton of elements and present it all without shoving it down your throat. Each time I watch a BD show I feel differently about it. I can't say the same about a lot of other corps. Overall season impressions: A lot of gimmicks in almost every show. Like silly little voice-overs, horrendous poses of looking off into the distance. It's like these corps are selling themselves out for points. Poor members! Revolt against some of your creative teams! Performance levels are top notch but are tarnished by these cheesy sound bites. It's like drinking a gallon of fondue and washing it down with maple syrup sometimes... The end, hope you enjoyed.

crossmen guard!!!!

It's finals week corps performing on fleek there really ain't no winning streak this activity ain't for the meek leek 1. The Blue Devils 97.85 2. The Holy Name Cadets 97.75 3. The Holy Name Blue Coats 97.7 4. The Holy Name Carolina Crown 97.65 5. The Santa Clause Vanguard 94.9 6. The Blue Knights 93.3 7. The Cavaliers (Im prayin hard) 92.25 8. The Dietary Regimen 92.0 9. The Blue Stars (Still prayin) 88.95 10. The Madison Scouts 88.9 11. The Boston Crusaders 88.85 12. The Colts 88.0

I mean the fact that someone thinks they are first is never a bad thing right? Hehe

Blue stars first in vis proficiency wow!! Good on them!

1. Blue stars! 2. Cadets 3. Bdubs 4. Crown 5. SCurVy 6. Bloo 7. Burger King 8. Cavs 9. Madison 10. Public Relations 11. BAC 12. Xmen 13. Troop 14. Colt 15. Cascades 16. Academy 17. Mandarins 18. SOAp 19. Pac Sun 20. pio 21. Surf

The soprano section

agree. kids don't deserve this careless show design, no matter how much you clean some of this it will never translate.

Smelling some serious bs in the bs score just saying

Predictions: 1. blue stars 2.

I predict that twelve corps will march in the finals thing and be very happy! Wow! The couple that end 13-15 will shed some tears, but the season will still have been a great one, knowing that the ability level of all corps was extremely high caliber to the point where 12 corps simply isn't enough. On the last day, the drum major will look at the horn sgt with a glimmering eye, put her hat down over her melancholy visage, and say under her breath, "I choose you, Pikachu." And the horn sgt will be released into the wild, suddenly unaware of the events in the preceding three months.

-_-

who's got the best soprano section? any thoughts?

1. Blue stars. Hands down. So much improvement from 2012, juggler, etc... as usual very dirty early season but still extremely well performed considering the difficulty of the show. 2. Cadets. Watching this show is suspenseful, I was sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time. So much movement, the music is extremely driving. Perfect design, imo. haters gonna hate. 3. Blue Knights. I'm gonna give them the gold star for improvement, they are one of the big wigs now and their show this year will only take them forward. Killer brass and percussion. 4. The soprano section. Like, does this need an explanation?

1. The soprano section above all 2. Blue Stars 3. Cadets 4. BD 5. BC 6. Crown 7. SCV 8. Cavies 9. BK 10. Phantom 11. Academy 12. OC Just being real

Hopeful prediction: 1.Blue Stars 2. BD 3. BAC 4. Cavs 5. Colts 6. Bluecoats 7. Blue Knights 8. SCV 9. Crown 10. Cadets (The power of 10 will only get you so far) 11. Oregon Crusaders 12. Madison Real Prediction: 1. Blue Stars 2-8. BD, Phantom, SCV, Bluecoats, Cadets, Crown, Cavs 9. Blue Knights 10. BAC 11. Madison 12. Oregon Crusaders