festive

Sarcasm.

I would watch him performing selected works by Mr. Barry Manilow. No foolin. I'd pay a couple of bucks to see it.

Whenever I try to not go near drum corps shows, I always end up regretting it. Noting that, I think amps are pretty silly. I've not been impressed once with their use. I don't anticipate that changing, but really, drum corps will do whatever it's going to do. I don't have any say about it. Silly amps and corps that are obsessed with making the activity into something new and different and exciting, when I thought it was all three without any of the changes, won't stop me from coming to shows, but that doesn't mean I like this so-called innovation. It means I want to see Regiment and some other corps I'm quite fond of, and when I've seen what I want to see, I'll leave. DCI can keep its scores, for instance. If I see a show coming up I don't like, I don't watch it. Drum corps, cafeteria-style. I will say this: the less a corps looks and sounds like a corps, the more likely I'll ignore their souvie truck.

Spelling rant... Oh, nevermind. :)

I don't think you need to join season pass to buy APD's. Users do get a discount, but you'd have to buy a lot of them (at $1 discount per download) to make that the primary reason for joining.

I'll reiterate how blown away I was by the 'coats...the show is a design feast. 11-1/2 minutes of sheer drum corps enjoyment. Couldn't get the stupid grin off my face for the next couple of days after the performance. I'm pulling for PR, of course, but Bluecoats are awesome this year...and personally, I'm thrilled that they're doing so well. :)

Or change the rule. Sorry... B)

Up one night, down another, and it's drum corps. It might have something to do with their performance, it might not. In the member diary entries you usually read that they thought they had a good show and their numbers dropped. Maybe they had a good show? :P

:spit:

I took the 90 day plan because I wanted to try it first. I'm not that thrilled so far. I have the Top 12 cd collection already...so them offering streaming audio of those recordings doesn't do me a lot of good. And the show coverage is, well, 2 minutes of the show. It's better than nothing, but cost-benefit wise, they'd have to add some stuff to the service if I were to renew.

This is about the coolest thing I've read on DCP in a long, long time.

Doesn't disappoint me. The corps has an open practice/performance for the locals and whoever else on Tuesday night. If the staff says that they need closed rehearsals, then they should have closed rehearsals. It also allows for a corps to put in surprises. I like those. As an aside, I read an article once about how having your friends and family attend a performance can actually make you perform worse than you would otherwise. Just a thought.

I just had that tape on yesterday...that's exactly how it sounded. Every corps that year sounded like crap in those recordings, though. Bunch of trebbly, staticy crud. Cut the low brass completely out of Regiment, for instance. Yech! How can you really tell how loud they were when the recording sounds so awful? <**> IBM Interactive Media is no doubt condemned to some circle of #### for the "great job" they did. What did they record on...some $20 Panasonic cassette recorder?

1. BD 2. Cadets 3. Cavaliers 4. Regiment 5. Madison 6. Bluecoats 7. Crown 8. SCV 9. BAC 10. BK 11. Glassmen 12. Mandarins But who knows...

My first thought was Falla- El Sombrero de Tres Picos...but Allegiance Elite did it. Some big corps should do it. Like Madison... OK, I thought of one...Polonaise No. 6 by Chopin. I'd love to hear Regiment play "Bydlo" from Pix @ an Exhibition. How about something by Ralph Vaughan Williams?

Drum corps is limited only by its occasional tendency to be self-serving. You act like drum corps can only appeal to a small group of people. You are incorrect, IMO. Lots of people from different backgrounds like drum corps--it has broad appeal. A new fan should be able to walk up and enjoy the show, so shows should have broad appeal. Unless you want a very lonely, very exclusive activity. I don't. B)

So what does that prove? How many people even know what drum corps is? Are you making a case for them having made a judgment against liking it, not knowing what it is? No, you appear to be making the "because we're a minority, we have to accept minority viewpoints, even when the minority viewpoint in question appears to be an unfair, dismissive generalization" argument. Right? No, I'm not suggesting that a show is better if it appeals to large numbers of people. I'm also not suggesting that there's something wrong with clean, technically accurate performance. I'm just saying that a passionate performance, even if it is a little dirty, will be prefered by most people when given the choice of that or a clean, technically accurate, but dull performance that doesn't connect to the audience. I'd rather watch a passionate performance, so I guess I'm part of the 90%. That doesn't mean that I'm faulting Pittsburgh, for anything other than not playing with more passion, value judgments aside. It's a matter of personal preference. You might be careful about it, but unsupported arguments like the one about Regiment's horn line do appear to me to be snobbish, and I have no intention of being careful about it. Just because people liked it doesn't mean they're wrong or bandwagon jumpers, does it? Particularly when the judges didn't agree with the assessment that the hornline sounded bad? Broad mainstream appeal and Coldplay comparisons to drum corps are your deal rather than mine. I never made the argument that broad mainstream appeal makes something "good." I just observed that Regiment connected with the audience because of the passion in the performance. And that the hornline wasn't necessarily awful because of a few problems. What wrong with mainstream appeal, anyway? If people want to like Coldplay, let them like Coldplay. I'm not going to call them bandwagon jumpers of an inferior band, no matter how little I care for their music. It would be a dismissive and unsupported argument based entirely on opinion. Wouldn't it? And sometimes being in the majority isn't a bad thing, either. <**> I thought calling Regiment's hornline overrated was a pretty unsupported argument, given that the poster saw one show from the zero yard line and declared the majority viewpoint the result of bandwagon thinking. Be amazed if you want.

There were some not good things about that performance, to be sure. The dissonance from the contras to the rest of the hornline at the contra entrance was one of the more terrifying memories I have of that summer, watching the corps. That's just one example. Still, I think you may be generalizing the entire season from one show. It would be a mistake to do that, though you are certainly understood in your critique of finals, and entitled to your opinion regardless. As far as I'm concerned, though, the Regiment corps that year gave everyone a dose of something they were sorely missing: the sound of a genuine, old school drum and bugle corps. Having been around the activity for long enough to know, there's a serious disconnect between the traditional sound of a corps and the sound being produced now. I would explain it like this: I saw two symphony concerts earlier this year. One was the Pittsburgh Symphony and one was the Kirov. The Pittsburgh played in a manner that was always controlled, and brilliant. And about half the audience was asleep (even though I personally found their performance stunning). The Kirov played in a way that was passionate and highly emotional--and occasionally they lost control of their sound. But man, did their brass section love playing for us. You could tell. And everyone left with huge smiles and genuine happiness. Pittsburgh might have been technically better than the Kirov, but if you asked what the people in the audience would want to hear again, they'd want to hear the Kirov. I'll bet the response would be about 90% in favor of hearing passion over technique. The 10% would likely drown in the snobbery of their own elitism. A winning brass book in DCI might get you the accolades of judges, but it won't necessarily win you the greatest fan response. It's nice to have both, but that's pretty rare. I would simply suggest to you that the drum corps audience wants to be entertained, not simply bedazzled by a display of technical prowess. Most fans are not performance majors in college. Most of them couldn't give a rip whether the corps in front of them has "greater technical demand and proficiency" if the show isn't interesting to them. All of this said, Regiment was fourth in brass performance at finals that year, less than a point away from the Blue Devils. I would tend to think the judge got it right. It was one of the most exciting brass lines in recent memory, IMO, and not the least bit overrated.

$20 each. Plus their "ticketing fee." At this price level, though, the ones you would get from them probably wouldn't be as good. Right now, on this new corps website, they are going for: $0.00. So any bid gets them. It would be foolish to send $$$ to DCI when you can save $ here. And it's for a good cause, no?

Come on, y'all. If you need quarters tix, and you (like me) really DO believe that there should be more corps, not fewer...buy these tickets...and help give drum corps back to Rhode Island! :)

Where'd you take that picture from? Rockford? That's some bizarre angle! :P

Half the distance to the goal. :sshh:

I was so taken by the show that I wanted to let Hop know personally, given that my only comment about this show previously was that I didn't like the uniform pic that was posted earlier. In context, the idea works surprisingly well. I'm more than happy to admit I was wrong in my initial impression. Randomguy: Bluecoats will make you smile the rest of the week. I'm still humming... 11 minutes of pure drum corps bliss. You'll love it. :)

Thanks for the review, Ryan. It was disturbing to read (particularly SCV...what the heck?!), but if that's what you saw, I'd prefer you write it the way you saw it.

Just some thoughts: Teal: Great job from this corps. I'm really impressed with their program and performance of it. They played with a good deal of (unexpected) panache. The last time I saw them, they were very small...apparently I've been missing out on great stuff coming out of Jacksonville. A lot of smiles and "wow...that was great!" from my section of the stands... Kiwanis: I felt bad watching this program...the design, particularly the color guard work, leaves a great deal to be desired. It's good to see these kids out there performing...but I would be more happy if they were given a better program to work on. I think I remember hearing a bari soloist that wasn't at all bad. New unis are, IMO, much better than the old ones, with the chains. Lots of sticking out of the ensemble from the brass. Magic: Preface by saying that I love Magic and think the world of them. I can't remember a lick of this show. Visually, they were OK for this time of the year, and certainly the members are very competent musically. But it didn't click with me as a product. Spirit: Nice, fun, safe broadway show. Certainly enjoyed watching it. Can't comment so much on the drill because I wasn't up high enough. But the individual technique of the members, both visually and sound-wise, was pretty fine for June. The Playbill-type covers are OK...sort of becoming an expected motif with this group, though. Boston: Liked BAC's show this year much better than last year's product. I'm not so fond of the color guard unis. I'm going to reserve further comment on this show until I see it again... Crown: Liked it. Esp. enjoyed hearing the strains of Gloria on the field again. Yum. Glassmen: To be honest, this is not my favorite Glassmen show of the recent past at this point. I can hear what they are going for, which is a fresh interpretation of Dvorak, but I'm not personally into it at this point. Might be a matter of personal taste. The new shield things on the uniforms look flimsy.... Bluecoats: I can't say enough about how much I dig this Bluecoats show. They blew the doors clean off the stadium from where I was sitting. Great understanding of the music and neat arrangements. A number of spectacular visual moments even from the lower part of the stadium. This corps is totally for real, and I'm pretty certain that they don't care who made top 5 last year....they're going as far as they can go with this. Wish I could see this one a few hundred more times. It's really going to smoke by finals. Cadets: Every now and then, I see a show that reminds me why I liked drum corps so much in the first place. Those types of show are rare, and increasingly so over the past couple of years. There's so much homogenization in the activity--so many gimmicks and so little substance, in my estimation. The Cadets show this year is that kind of show. I was alternately confused, giddy, and amazed. It's intellectually stimulating and entertaining. As a total package, I'd say it borders on genius. I wanted to see it again, immediately. I regret that I won't be able to see it again until Semifinals. I had to buy the CD before I left; It's that good. IMO...go ahead and disagree (or agree) if you like. To be perfectly honest, I was prepared to not like the show, from the comments of others I heard before the show (including here on DCP). I adore having my preconceived notions proven wrong. Even in what is clearly its embryonic stage, this show has legs; I could see Cadets taking the title with this show. The two-front uniform idea is hip. It looks good to me; it'll (eventually) show off the visual by finals in a way that black pants wouldn't. Anyway, I think it's cool. Cavies: I'm pretty underwhelmed by this show, to be perfectly honest. Maybe I wasn't up high enough to be wowed by the drill. I'm not nearly so enthusiastic about the innovation of the program as I was about 2000-2002, or the sheer entertainment value of 007. I think the ladders are, well, cheesy. The dancing firefighters didn't do a lot for me. The fire effect with the horns was pretty cool. But it seems like a lot of "effect" for the most part. I'll forego further comment until I see them again. Entertainment and content-wise, if I could see any of these shows again, definitely Cadets and Bluecoats.