festive

Great review! I was at that show, too. I felt the PR show was sort of rough at the Show of Shows (my first viewing of them this year), but markedly better at Michigan City. I can't wait to see what improvements/changes they throw in by San Antonio when I see them next. Sounds like they got a lot of the crassness in the low brass taken care of...the warm blend is especially noticeable in the second sketch.

Well, I'm sure the new ones are nice, but I was thrilled when the DM's came out in Indianapolis last year in their old-school, ***-kicking uniforms. :o I don't particularly care for the "shoulder broadeners"--it's great that uniforms are, well, uniform among one corps, but I don't understand why they have to be so similar between groups. <_<

It would be very easy for you to be mean in this instance and make a negative comment or two. But maybe it wouldn't be the best response. I mean, the girl can't be all bad--she's chosen to join your corps, right? She must have reasonably good taste. If you and everybody else is nice to her, she'll get over her homesickness and probably become a very strong member of your group. It's called personal growth--drum corps tends to bring that out. She'll grow up a little and you'll all be better off. I saw the Orlando show, incidentally, and I didn't even notice the drop. It wasn't because I was ignoring your show, so it must not have been that big of a deal. I wasn't at field level--I was way up in the stands, and it's a different show up there. ;)^ By the way, it's good that your pit is rocking out to your show, but that one guy needs to get it under control. Grooving is one thing, but man...that cat is too much.

That's "scoring" of course. Sheez. w/Stp:

PR beats Glassmen in brass at Crown Point and then gets beat by Madison's horns the next night? Was anyone at Woodstock? It's all relative, I know, but this seems pretty subjective. It's quite a jump from Jenison. How strong is Madison's horn line? Are they underrated?

I enjoyed the review. Drum corps fans are not usually secretive with their opinions (I said I liked Crown last year, and not less than 10 people around me at the Indianapolis show told me why they didn't like Crown. It didn't make me like Crown any less), so I'm not surprised by it in the least. It might be crass, but it's honest. If you love Madison, you'll still love Madison even if everybody in the stands hates them (yeah, like that's likely!!)...drum corps inspires fierce loyalty. So the review ends up being exactly what it is--what one viewer saw at the show. It's quite a bit harder to find something to love about each and every corps--which is what I try to do. I want maximum enjoyment for my ticket price, and I certainly don't get on planes and drive all over the place to shows to get ticked off because Corps X didn't move fast enough or sounded like mating rhinos their first week out. I had a brass instructor tell me once, "every corps sucks...they just suck at different levels." In other words, imperfection is par for the course; it's whether you can control that tendency better than other groups. Drum corps is very human in that it is inherently flawed. I'd rather read an honest review than a sycophantic one. If anything, reading a bunch of bad reviews makes me really happy when I see a corps and they are loud/good/better than I expected. As for PR's bugles, if anyone can gain control of the tone and cease the raspiness and splattering, I have faith that they can. Their brass staff can definitely make some serious headway in that regard. Hopefully they can get some of that done before I see them at Show of Shows.

I know BAC replaced their G horns with Bb's, and were selling their G horns. They had a recent set of contras...I think they mentioned they were having trouble getting rid of them. You might want to give them a try.

My single favorite is from the end of Regiment's 1989 show when the sopranos restate the theme from the beginning of the finale. They're standing in a diagonal line with the low brass marching directly toward them. Then the full hornline blows the stadium apart. I love that. Michael Oldemeyer That's my pick, too!! Good call! Chris

1989, then, in order, 1996, 1979, 1993, 1977, etc. No question that 1996 is riveting and amazing, but 1989 has always been in my mind the standard of a perfect hornline. Not just technique, but for feeling and emotion, they were walking on water. Not that '96 didn't have its emotional moments, but I've always seen that show as a bleak portrait...a lot of it had to be painted in a very stoic manner--so a lot of the emotion came from audience response. '89 by a slim margin, IMHO.