Jared_mello

BD needs to be careful once finals week 2018 comes around.

hahah, like dcp tourette's. that is pretty funny though, i hadn't given the extensive variety of my posts too much thought. every month or two i come on here and write a novel.....i doubt dcp people have any reason to care about where my brother marches. not rough, but very strange though. i'd be going about my business as usual during the day, and randomly think about how emotional the day would have been for me had i not made that decision. it was my first day working a new job, and i called a close dci friend of mine as soon as i randomly got let off. he was on the field (was a volunteer during finals week....dunno how he pulled that one off) and said they had just announced bluecoats score a few seconds earlier. i was really happy to hear it; its truly a testament to the work ethic of the young members/leaders of the corps this year. i was especially happy realizing that the drumline gets their finals moment on the dvd this year, which they absolutely deserve. i'll forever remember the shell station i was at, listening to the last 2 score announcements, sitting in my car with the windows closed before stepping outside to fill up my tank. what a moment. i wanted bd to win only because a good friend of mine decided to skip this year of drum corps.....she had marched mello with phantom for the last two years, wanted to take a season off, and has been having one of the worst summers of her life. them winning would only make her feel worse, i presume. i'm sure she'll be back to age out next year. i dont know when the bluecoats performed last night, but 'eye of the tiger' came on the radio at work at 9:35. people were whistling it and stuff afterwards. when i got home and turned on the olympics, a budweiser commercial was on that basically featured the rocky theme too. go figure. the reality of the situation has long since set in, so yesterday wasn't too big of a deal. only slightly surreal....my lower back has become enough of an issue this summer that i haven't regretted my decision for a minute. i'm just happy that for the 3rd year out of the last 4, 'my' corps has worked some finals night magic to make great things happen. congrats to the scouts, too!! seriously, glad it relatively worked out for both of our teams this year.

haha, nice. 2 straight third places = dishonor to the family name.

i was about to post and say 'and please include an extra on the dvd's (easter egg?) featuring crossmen's intro from last year.' i only saw a video once, a low-quality one on facebook, and would love to see it again. maybe include it as an easter egg on the 13-20 (?) dvd....?

hahah, welcome to the world of drum corps

wish i got a chance to see it.

great point, and a good idea for the future. thanks for contributing something productive.....i agree with your suggestion.

i did that (camera thing) in 2006. it wound up on the finals retreat dvd, which really surprised and amused me. i think that was the year (unfortunately) of champions fanfare. i have videos on my computer, perhaps worth posting on youtube if anyone is interested. i played it right except for one frack during the runs towards the conclusion, and a high F (which was definitely in tune, for what that's worth) to end the piece. i always played the right notes during retreat because in some really small way, i wanted to prove my musicianship to the corps next to me....and also, hear how well they knew it. i remember people in the cadets, scv, and the cavaliers playing it correctly and in tune with me during 2007 retreats. one of my favorite times was in denver with the blue knights in 2007....i was next to (taylor?) their mello soloist/the i&e winner, who played all the right notes throughout the piece. when i went to the high Eb at the end (it was in the arpeggio that year), he did the same thing, half a second later, and was perfectly in tune with me. if we weren't standing next to each other, we could have done some dignified bow of respect to each other, ala cavies '08. when we did it with BD in kalamazoo, some double Ab's were thrown in on behalf of around 3 or so people. the people who tried it did it well, and it made me and a bunch of other people happy. if you were in the audience that night and were offended, send me a PM about it or something. america o canada or whatever the piece of the music in the finale is called, sucks every year. the piece just isn't played often enough anymore/instilled in people's memories like it used to be. thats a side effect of the lack of full retreats. it used to sound pretty decent in the 90's, but for whatever reason (and there's many to choose from), it doesn't sound nearly as respectable as it used to. most corps dont take it very seriously anymore, though some do. the better way to put it would be to say that MOST INDIVIDUALS dont take it very seriously, but some still do. there are only 2 or maybe 3 corps in which the entire hornline seems to take it seriously. america isn't any worse off because the trumpets hang over at the end of the piece. it's definitely not a moment that's the least bit complimentary of drum corps' military roots, but the activity has clearly strayed away from it anyway. american ideals are nice and all, but there's an immeasurably tremendous amount of 'history' in the past century that i'm embarrassed to be the least bit associated with. hell, let's just use drum corps as a metaphor. while the american ideal is that the members of 12 drum corps play all the notes of the finale correctly, some do and some don't. while we "fight a war" in the middle east in the name of international justice, people take orders from higher ups, torture iraqis, and take pictures of it. many soldiers haven't killed innocent civilians in iraq and afghanistan, but some have. people on dcp won't ever be able to do anything about kids, at the end of their season/dci careers, playing wrong notes in the finale. if youre horrified and disgusted seeing people making a mockery of something that you take incredibly seriously (aka our international reputation), do what i do when i read the news on the bbc's website. cringe, sigh, and distract yourself with something else. hey america, no offense, but i'm just using you as an example.

nice, well-put.

'95 phantom is actually my favorite show, by the way.

i loved phantom's drumline/book in 1995. such tasty writing.....maybe even rachmaninoff himself would have been proud.

you were 100% right, wow. blue stars in 7th, and glassmen in 9th. ####. i might need to request your services soon/play the lottery for the first time.

probably embrochure. plenty of corps do it during their brass warmups. it's really not that hard at all, to be honest. phantom seems to be the corps that's most well known for doing it in the lot. it was a cool effect in the cavies show this year though, i suppose.

keep the bluecoats color guard's drill in mind when making those accusations is all i have to say in return. especially compared to some of the other top guards. my questions in this thread (mainly about judging) have been answered, so i'm done here. enjoy.

why do people keep talking about crown getting 2nd in percussion? its not true.

hah. i know cadets and bluecoats were both pretty young this year, hornline-wise. a friend of mine from bd '06 said there were a lot of 2008 ageouts....not sure how many of those had stuck around since then.

i'm less sure about this year because i didnt spend my summer around them, but they certainly haven't been doing "class A work" for the last few years, not in the least.

hopefully the dvd's sound better than the semis broadcast because the stadium sounded AWFUL for that. not as bad as all domes, but worse than some. also, my roommate (cadets) said the grasstroturf was some of the worst he's ever performed on. mushy, sort of like the rca dome's turf, ironically. thats what happens when it's new, i suppose, but it sucks that it was that way for finals week. the turf looked great color-wise though. really looking forward to the dvd's.....not just for the turf's sake though, haha.

i guess we can watch the guard cam on the dvd now and see for ourselves......someone remember to make a thread about this once the dvd's are released.

though 5th in drums hurt them.... i think the visual performance (on the field) number did it. especially compared to semis. really surprised bd's number changed the way it did, and same with phantom's number.

i find that choice really really really really weird. granted they were the obvious crowd favorite, but uh.....disney? really? i'm almost as shocked as i was with the actual finals result.

they're all huge. im almost compelled to say blue stars, though i voted phantom. 30 years is a LONG time. not even just back in finals, but 8th, having broken 90. crazy. this must be surreal for the blue stars of the 80's (barely existing) and 90's (div 3). crown joined the bluecoats in being the only corps to jump into the top 4 since star was hanging around. they did it faster though, and probably more assertively. much higher score.....considering bluecoats scored the exact same score tonight as in 2006. by the way, they got 4th in drums (19.1), not 2nd. bluecoats were in the top 3 in drums for the THIRD year in a row. 3rd in drums (and horns) in 06, 2nd in 07, and 3rd in 08. congrats, guys, glad most of you stuck around. hope it was worth it. I'M SO HAPPY YOU GUYS GET THE DRUM CAM ON THE DVD THIS YEAR. you deserve it. the hornline, as young as they were, truly made me proud; i'm really glad the (debatably) best brass moment of the summer was theirs to call their own. you performed the hell out of what you were given. oh and if the guard didn't pull out an 8th place finish on finals night, i dont think the jump to 6th could have happened...."get it," bccg, you guys are the sassiest color guard in dci by far. SIX WORDS. i love you guys. congrats to boston too, for overwhelmingly exceeding my expectations before the season. i called you guys falling out of finals (ala magic '04), but 'neocosmos' was one of my favorite shows of this year. perfect show for the drum corps, i think. very aggressive, masculine (how i perceive their image as a whole), and entertaining, with a definitive nod to the past. welcome back scouts.....xmen would have been a better story i suppose, but madison was definitely worthy....i think it was probably their best show since '05. i think glassmen '08 was their best show since '02, both performance and design-wise. cadets, im really glad your ending was changed so that the crowd was thinking about YOU and your abilities when the show ended, instead of george's ideas. i have a lot of good friends who switched corps (primarily from boston) to the cadets this summer, including my little brother and my roommate/best friends, and i hope those of you who aged out found the experience to be worth it. the last minute of your closer was one of the best 60 seconds in dci this year, and proof that hiding these talents behind an informative theme is a waste of time. for the many of you who aged out there this year, i'm truly sorry that george hopkins spent the last week of your careers bringing attention to the 2009 'holy name' cadets and their incoming show. you deserve better than that, and i hope you tuned it out as much as you needed to. i'm really glad you guys got to experience performing at that high of a level, on that scope. alex bender, i hope aging out with the maroon team instead of the blue one was a worthwhile end to your well-documented drum corps career. bk, i really liked your show. it was the weirdest i've possibly ever seen but i appreciated the creativity, constant exposure, and belief in what you were doing. i didnt really get what your show was really 'about' but you made me believe in it anyway. even if some of your alumni would disagree with me saying this, I WAS ENTERTAINED. bd........you guys were awesome all season. i loved it, minus some of the finals week changes. phantom was surely a hard beast to hold off come finals night.......if you guys had won, everyone (most people) would have hated you, so i guess it's for the best. you guys are a MARCHING SPECTACLE, putting on clinics at every show. thank you. phantom, i can't believe you guys pulled off what you did.....show design aside, you guys worked your ##### off to put that show on the field. that video of the 4 to 5 firebird suite exercise from last year was telling......you guys, whether the staff made you do it or not, were physically going to put yourselves in the position to take it. i guess thats the point though. you guys were the best at doing what you were told ....certainly had the vehicle to make it happen. phantom, you made a bunch of people's years/lives tonight.....i'm sure the crowd's response to the score announcement would have effectively conveyed the magnitude of what you did, if those GOLD MEDALS didn't do so anyway. two divisions of drum corps, two corps jumping into 1st on finals night. sorry, BD organization. congrats, phantom, SCVC, and drum corps fans who paid attention in 2008. i got a bit carried away with these thoughts but uhhhh yeah, goodbye 2008/potential last year of junior drum corps eligibility. i enjoyed the drama.

i think dci is going to go with your last option tonight, personally.

certainly cant help emotionally. though, if phantom really does have a 5th place visual program, and bd's is the best in the world (and apparently, one of the best of all time), the performance order tonight will only highlight that.

the part from 2:11 (specifically 2:28) to 2:40 in that may recording is my favorite musical moment of this year. the part i was referring to earlier that was cut can be found in the "Blue Devils "A" play encore 7/5/2008" video on youtube at 2:33. RIP mello part/uniqueness.