J-Dawg

The Marines were excellent!! I was VERY impressed with the evolution and new sound from them. They have improved so much. That drumline… my gracious! The recruitment from DCI has definitely been a positive for them. But I do always love the traditional tunes and glad they still perform them at the highest level!

My gracious what a night! Hearing and seeing the Blue Devils and Carolina Crown back to back was an absolute TREAT! Such contrast between those 2. And both SLAYED tonight!! I felt the Blue Devils were on pointttt with percussion tonight. And Crown is sounding just Godly on brass once again! It’s fantastic having this rivalry BACK. It’s been too long!

HOLY #### Crown!

I was there in Little Rock tonight seeing these corps live for the first time this season. It was interesting having Crown and Bluecoats perform back to back. It was basically like telling the judges ok… here’s an apple and an orange. Judge! Lol I felt Crown’s show was extremely difficult but VERY exposed (in a good way). I’ll tell you the color guard absolutely blew me away and I’m a drum guy. I definitely hope they win the Zingali this year. They are working their butts off! I would say they just need to highlight King Arthur better with a flashier color outfit (maybe some red or purple?) He gets lost at times in the shuffle but maybe that’s on purpose. I felt the drums big time from Crown, and I really like this new direction and sound from them. A lot more risks on the snare and tenor lines with some wicked accent writing. And SUCH dynamic control. It compliments the brass so well. I would have scored them much higher tonight in my opinion. But I’m not on the field I guess lol Bluecoats had an odd show but I definitely dig the Kinetic Noise throwback and color explosion on the field! To me, I see color guard being a big problem and I think that will hold them out of a medal this season. It just pales in comparison to Crown. Not sure what happened with design? Bluecoats drums were smoking though and they definitely deserved 1st in Drums. The crowd response was better with Crown than Bluecoats tonight (which is odd because there is a heavy Bluecoats fanbase here in LR since they come and host this every year) but I felt both shows left the crowd quiet mostly because they are such complex shows, it’s hard to cheer. I’ll be in Broken Arrow so it will be interesting to see how the percussion scoring pans out, because I think it was a bit off. But hey, the Cavaliers brought it on the drum line tonight! Loved the snare solos!