MikeN

The Tropers - everything in their show you've seen in a million other shows. Mike

1997 was my first full summer on RAMD, so it was my first experience with daily scores, analysis and opinions. So many opinions. Very eye-opening from someone who had no real interaction with other DCI fans to that point. I did get to see the Killeen show live (Phantom and Madison headlined it), which was a blast - Madison's Pirates show was one that was much better live than on video. Overall, the top 12 in 97 were one of the three strongest of the 90's, along with '92 and '95. Not a weak program in the bunch, and program difficulties were increasing leaps and bounds every year, it felt like. Blue Devils had a friggin' *clean* show. They also managed to tie everything together with a nice Casablanca bow without literally retelling the story. Night in Tunisia has my musical highlight of the show, where the hornline just starts blasting old-school nightclub chords with screamers over the top. And yeah, the box drill moves - spectacular. (I also love the orchestral part from One Night in Bangkok as their opener. I've heard it from a looooot of marching bands ever since.) The Cadets had such a bright, signature sound. It's a shame they got away from it down the road. It's one of those things that when you're listening it makes you stop and go "oh. It's the Cadets." Their '97 show was a great casserole of all of the things they do well - breakneck drill, technical horns, aggressive battery, guard work on guard work - very nice! Can't say anything they didn't do well. BD was just... better. It took me a little while to grow into SCV, as the show leans hard into angry chords. I think like all of us DCI fans in the 90's, we still weren't used to the New Normal. But man, this show in retrospect is so much fun. On the Waterfront is in-your-face aggressive, and the Epilogue at the end just keeps building angry on angry. They doubled down in '98, but this was definitely a "new" style from Vanguard. Phantom had a masterful brass line for The Ring. They also had an okay drumline, so-so show design and a bit of a visual mess. It's hard to reconcile that they had the whole of however many operas to source from and ended up with ... some pretty blah charts. Trying to go minimal in the color wheel backfired on them too. I would have put them in 6th. What Phantom lacked in passion, Madison brought in spades. Musically, Pirates of Lake Mendota had a little more sophisticated Madison sound, and when I saw them live midsummer, I really did have their horns above Phantom. It felt like they were really putting the pieces together to make a run in the scores, but it kind of tailed off at the end. I'd have put them in 4th. Regardless, the show itself was one of Madison's best 90's productions, and I'll rewatch it any time it's in front of me. Crossmen's 1997 show might be their best of the 90's. On a technical level, it's the best musicians they had, for sure, and they organically created a *ton* of wow moments. Saw them in person - they were loud loud loud. Colts that summer had hype for blowing everyone's faces off, but seeing them at the same show, Crossmen topped them pretty soundly. The big chord at the end brought the house down. (And as mentioned earlier, this for me too is the definitive Birdland.) I'd have had them likely in 5th. The Cavaliers had a great drill feature to start the show, and nobody online could figure out what they were doing. Again, hindsight - cause in 2020 it's no big deal, but at the time they turned heads wherever they went. ("How can you reward a corps with only 8 minutes of music wah wah") Probably the right placement for them - they were better than everyone behind them, but didn't generate the energy the ones above them did. Glassmen reinvented themselves in '97, and they really became what most people think of when they hear of modern-day Glassmen. Unis kept the gold and black but added the chestpiece, and the music leaned heavily into the symphonic/orchestral. Bizet was a safe choice, but they maximized the hell out of it. Their Farandole closer to me is better than what the Cadets did in '02. Also charmingly naive of us - we were all scared to death someone would fall off of their millions of ladders on the field. If only we have seen what the Bluecoats were going to do to their backfield conductors in the 2010's... Blue Knights were only one year removed from what felt like a young corps and safe show, and they ratcheted up the difficulty pretty significantly in '97. Ben Hur was a great choice for a dark, aggressive vehicle that let them really throw the show in everyone's faces. Their battery was the star of the show - a lot of notes, and very, very clean. Magic of Orlando had two different shows - the first three minutes, then the other 9. The first three were awesome, in recreating a Mardi Gras parade and feel that encouraged the audience to participate. The drum major's were a hoot. Then the "real" show started and it felt flat against the rest of it. This was IIRC the last of the Robert W. Smith years, and along with '96, the peak of Magic as a corps. Bluecoats went a little risque (for their standards) in '97, and their show is fun. Not revolutionary, but fun, clean, professional... however you want to term it. I've spoken with a few 90's BC vets who feel that for those in the corps, this was probably their favorite/best show of that era. It's definitely worth watching. Carolina Crown had a 12th place show that didn't *feel* like a 12th place show. In fact, until I saw the list posted earlier, I would have sworn they were 8th. Terpsichore is one of my favorite 90's horn charts - catchy and fun. Yeah, yeah, they borrowed from 2-7. So what? I wish they hadn't used Nimrod again, but that's about all I can complain about. Other highlights from '97 include the Colts opener, which just peeled your face off, Kiwanis Kavaliers and their 8 bass drums (I still sing their version of The Money Kept Rolling In), Academie's Pie Jesu was just gorgeous, and Pioneer's whole #### show (which was a definite step up in quality as well as demand, but didn't quite generate the excitement the '96 show did). Coming next: in '98 the Cadets put on what might be the (deliberately) ugliest opening big horn hits in a championship show to date. SCV says "hold my beer" with their whole program, and BD plays Tchaikovsky. Nothing strange about any of this. Nothing at all.

Randomly seeing a Hook 'em Cavies post just reminded me I totally skipped The Cavaliers. 😞 Their '96 show famously <anecdotally> even got Don Warren irked at their creative direction, but honestly - in hindsight, it's a good show, if not a great one. It has a ton of thematic development, a pretty clear identity and some really long, warm brass bits. The drum book did not set the world alight, but it's still very strong. I know everyone only remembers the lattice, but it's worth a re-watch! Mike

Sorry, one more observation. 7 snares, 3 tenors, 5 basses are the devil. A toooooon of corps experimented with this battery size. They were all bad because of it. Mike

Ok, help me out here, since I saw the same lineup in Texas. Phantom's closer during that summer (Shosta-Five) - didn't the sopranos originally continue the 16th note runs in their little opening feature into playing the famous string ostinato (if I had to sing it, I'd say "dye-ah-dat-dat / dye-ah-dat-dat / dye-ah-dat-dat" really fast...) that blasts over the melody? That wasn't in the Finals version, but I swear they were doing it earlier. And they also did the massive ritard at the end of the original symphony but left it a tempo by Finals too? Mike

'96 was a year of firsts for me. As much of a drum corps fanatic as I'd been since '89, that summer was my first live show (Killeen, TX - Phantom over Cavies over Crown). Finals night '96 was also my first time finding drum corps online via RAMD (also dumbly asked "what's the best show ever" and got decades worth of education in one thread). Also my first year buying the videos for Christmas. Phantom had a show for the ages. Brass was great, guard was good, drums were okay, and the GE was iconic. It's hard to see on the videos, but the triangular poles they used in the middle movement were an "ooooh" for the audience as they strobed, catching the light. When we heard them midsummer, I thought for sure they'd challenge for a title. And the black on black unis looked spectacular under stadium lights. Visually, it was a show built for outdoor night performances, for sure. Blue Devils, however, punched equally as hard. I think this show has grown in a lot of peoples' estimations *since* that year. That gut punch opening chord is to die for. Desi, in particular (the 2nd "production" number) leaned hard into jazz, and the Dick Tracy music fit the mood really well. Why'd they end up tying? Probably because Phantom rode that GE wave and caught them - I don't know BD put a foot wrong. The Cadets had... well, a fun show. A well performed show. Not a terribly visually interesting show, and not one that felt like it took any risks. Yeah, they fixed that the next few years. Beef. Santa Clara rebooted themselves in '96, and while it might not have been a young group (I truly don't know), it *felt* like a young group. You can definitely see the design groundwork being laid for their 97-98 shows, building of course to their title in '99. They do capture Debussy well, and while it's not going to blow your mind, if you're a Vanguard fan it's worth watching. Madison Scouts went back to the well, and while the brass felt a little fuzzier, and the guard moments not quite so Wow, and the drumline (holy cow, 8 tenors?!?) underwhelmed (how can you not hear 8 tenors?!?), it's still a wonderful production. If anything, I think the *show* in '96 was much better than in '95, though the performance wasn't as sharp. Bolero > Concerto de Aranjuez, always. Bluecoats had a rock solid show, and performance. The Auld Lang Syne closer was an awesome touch to end it, but My Funny Valentine kind of stole the show. Crossmen had their famous move to YEA, of course, and the numbers suffered, but the show was a great Crossmen jazz performance. Birdland of course was spectacular (and even better in '97). I wish they hadn't kept the shakos that year, but that's about my only gripe. Magic put on probably their best show of their existence in '96. Twelve Seconds, though not written for drum corps, sure felt like it was. Of course, at the time we still felt they were a little *too* avant garde for what we still thought of as primarily hot-dog audiences. Looking back from today, it's a fine, 20th century show done about 10 years too early. Carolina Crown's Chess show was I think the best-designed program of their 90's years. It was dark, edgy and the chess pieces were amazing in person. Again, modern audiences are used to these sorts of things now, but at the time most of us had never seen anything quite like it. I can still sing you the Walton opener. Nimrod was really good as well, if since waaay overused. I may have to go watch this one again. Oh yeah, and these were the second best uniforms they ever had. (Gotta go with 2013 for first.) Ok, I've always had a soft spot for the Colts, but as I write these reviews I realize I keep dumping on their shows. Can't do that with Magnificat - absolutely beautiful arrangements! The whole production is glorious, and I love love love it. It felt like it was written for a 5th-6th place corps musically. BK snuck into Finals with a smaller corps, a more reserved set of charts and a little more reserved visual program, and I can't find much fault with it. They gave the kids an achievable vehicle that they could clean really well, and it worked. They, like SCV, also used this show to lay the groundwork for much-upgraded vehicles in the next few years. It was only a few years ago that I finally heard the pre-show from Glassmen - go find it on Youtube. Absolute brass balls from the arrangers to put that on first in a late-90's program. You could make a pretty convincing argument that they should have been 12th. They had horn intensity from start to finish. VK's last show came in '96, and it was definitely a whisper rather than a roar. I'm sure the arrangers took it as seriously as ever, but it almost felt like the gags were becoming the program, not the music. Finally, Les Etoiles earned the second biggest upset of the summer by beating Pioneer. Seriously - Pioneer's Celtic Twilight show was a beast. Almost Division 1 size, drill, music - they had it all. Did *not* see that one coming, but once you see Les Etoiles, man they had a good show. And of course, zero-gee drum racks. You had me at Zero Gee... Next time - DCI's middle year in Orlando surprisingly brought one of the strongest lineups of the '90's together. Mike

Friggin' awesome! Mike

Can't argue with everyone's recording opinions - the '95 (and other IBM years) shows are awful next to the ones before and after. The pit is massively overbalanced and the whole thing sounds like it wasn't processed at all - just "here, have some noise." Yikes. I think '95 was another one of those years where the 1st-12th group was incredibly strong. Sure didn't feel like a 15 point spread. The Cavaliers, of course, won title #2 on the backs of GE and Visual. Their drill was magnificent, and closer to the 2000-2006 Cavaliers than the '92 one. Lots of big drill moves to jump around for, and their battery was a behemoth. I don't have a lot to add to everyone else's thoughts - it was just #### good drum corps. Cadets had a healthy spread over BD, and I felt it was really more of a pick 'em. Cadets felt stronger in GE and percussion, BD felt stronger in brass and visual. (I have no idea what the actual caption scores were - just my impression.) The Cadets were a ton of fun in '95, even with extra helpings of cheese thrown on, and the John Williams tunes kept everything bright and fast, which to me is Quintessential Cadets. Blue Devils kind of made my head explode in '95, as both musically and visually they decided to discard everything they'd done for decades in one fell swoop. Looking back on it as an adult, it kind of had to happen to stay competitive - judges just weren't going to crown old-school jazz shows - but to young me it felt like a bit of a betrayal. Musically, they were ok, though it sure as heck didn't feel like an undefeated show coming in . Visually, if there was a story, it's definitely a head scratcher as to what was going on out there. All in all, in historical context, it was more of a transition year than a statement year. And they turned out okay. Madison did what they did. It wasn't a revolutionary design, and the charts, while slightly torquing up the difficulty, didn't set minds alight. They just did what they do, but they probably did it better than they've ever done before or since. (Yeah, counting the two title shows as well.) I have a handwritten copy of the snare chart to La Danza Pasillo, and you can pry that from my cold hands. I'm very much of the opinion that audience reaction should count in GE - if you're not playing to the audience in front of you, why bother? - and I haven't heard a convincing argument yet why Madison shouldn't have been first in that caption. My *only* gripe - I don't like Concerto de Aranjuez as a song. That's... about it. Phantom's dark pivot was awesome, as were their charts in '95. Purple was a great choice to accompany the silver and black, and it looked great on Rich Stadium's bright turf. (Probably my second favorite TV backdrop from those years. Camp Randall was first - the colors always popped there.) The show has a weird double ending where it feels like you're done at about 9 minutes in, right before the closer, then it picks up again. From a pacing standpoint, either the back of the show got really twisted throughout the summer, or someone on the programming team needed a talking to. Drum feature was cool for it's literal bells and whistles, but I kind of hoped they'd be a little more aggressive throughout. Santa Clara's show was a bit of a mess. The front half was pretty neat in twisting Nutracker stuff, and it actually made sense. The back half of the show turned into a standard Nutcracker show and dropped the pretense. They didn't mesh very well. I think this one sounded better on paper than it did on the field. Bluecoats absolutely deserved their jump to 7th, and I'd have had them in 6th. This was their first real show that communicated a visual theme and story, and they hit a home run. The music was engaging and more sophisticated, the program rode all of the peaks and valleys, and that drum line was rock solid. It felt like this was they year they adapted to the 90's, and we're all glad they did! Glassmen, to me, also hit programming paydirt after their incoherent '94 show. Bach just lends itself to good brass arrangements, and Glassmen brought the hornline to do it justice. Beautiful guard (and I'm not a guard guy) and good drill program helped a lot too. Drumline was all right, if they didn't set the world on fire. Colts and Glassmen always seemed to be Finals partners during these years. This was really the first Colts show that grabbed me long-term. It was also really the first time I'd really listened to any Sondheim. As such, it has a lot of flow, but not much extended development or repetition to latch on to. There was a very stream of consciousness sort of pacing to it, and that made it memorable. Crossmen ... well, I liked the music. Both School for Scandal and Sym. for Brass and Percussion were memorable, exciting charts, and the drumline brought the heat in the closer quite nicely. It just wasn't The Crossmen, you know? Overall, though, I think I had less of a problem with it than most, because the did managed to shoehorn the battery in so nicely. Carolina Crown made their first Finals with Stephen Melillo and the largest 90's shoulder pads known to man. I'm automatically predisposed to any show that courageously includes Enya, and Stormworks was pretty cool. Can't argue with the placement - it felt about right. Magic of Orlando dropped the Cirque stuff while... not dropping the Cirque stuff. The Robert W. Smith charts were really cool, though, evoking the same feelings while putting it in a more drum-corps-ey setting. Much more complex music than '93 and '94, and they were growing up nicely - though at the time we didn't understand it. They got kind of fairly / kind of unfairly labeled as the "weird" corps. With the advantage of hindsight, they were merely ahead of their time. Other notable shows - Blue Knights zagged right off the cliff, though they recovered fairly quickly. VK dropped most of the pretense and put on a drummer's delight. Troopers felt a more distant 14th than they did the year before. Pioneer jumped onto a looot of people's radar (in a good way) with a Totally Irish show that worked. All in all, like I said a very strong 1-12 lineup. Most of the shows were just fun, while still growing up on a showmanship and sophistication level. Mike

I totally forgot to post earlier how ###### much I like BD’s 94 show. Love the concept, the single-source repertoire, the way each tune kind of builds and builds, the insane brass feature in the closer, all of it! One of my favorite BD programs. Mike

Sorry for the multi posts - final thoughts. Boston got hosed. This was a *really* tight show from start to finish, and I think they outplayed the Colts across the board. Should have been a finalist, I feel. Argh. Honestly? Troopers also should have challenged for a Finals spot. Their program was rock solid and the brass in particular sounded excellent. Finally, just as an aside, I loved VK's musical book in '94, even if it wasn't the most precisely played program ever. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone's tried stuff from Nightmare Before Christmas since. Like I said, mostly overall this felt like a rebound from the '93 shows where most designers (relatively) lost their minds. A few corps still managed to push the envelope, but the evolution stalled a bit. Especially in the bottom half, this didn't feel like an all-time lineup. Mike

(part 2 - for some reason DCP does not like long posts from me...) Blue Knights knocked their show selection out of the park. Trittico had enough complexity to showcase their musicians, while the music was engaging enough to keep the audience entertained and interested. Watching them, it felt like the corps was growing up a bit, and might have found their wheelhouse. (Yeah, yeah, shows what I know, considering '95.) Crossmen went one too many times to the well. Trilogies, even conceptual ones, don't work in DCI - 3 years is too far ahead to predict. Vanguard tried that too in the 2000's by announcing their next three shows, and that didn't last either. The performers did a fine job with the vehicle, clearly, and it felt like the audience appreciated it, but it did also feel like the corps was spinning its wheels a bit. Bluecoats "Blues" show was a more sophisticated set of charts, but I don't know if the corps really broke any new ground here. That said, I'll listen to it again anytime. I love Things Ain't What they Used to Be, and they have a great arrangement of it. Glassmen - no more Tostitos-Bag-Design jackets = yay. Western wear = ... . I'd love to have sat in the design meetings for this one. The show is the equivalent of a road trip in an 80's family van. Captain's chair, full carpet, looking out the window while listening to the radio. I have to admit, even as a Glassmen fan, this one does not make my playlist. While Magic of Orlando's '94 show took the '93 concept and cranked it up, I kind of prefer the charts they played the year before. You can't argue, however, with the massive jump in quality. At the time their costuming was considered a must-see. Today we'd just say "huh. Winter Guard." They definitely earned their spot in Finals. Colts really underwhelmed me this year. The show felt like a throwback compared to everyone around them, but it's a testament to their quality that they made top 12. For me, they improved leaps and bounds in the latter half of the 90's, but we're not there yet. Mike

1994 felt like, in many respects, a bounce back from the previous season for many corps. BD of course, reinvented themselves for the first of many times to come. The "classic" 80's look was gone and replaced with what at the time was a sequined, streamlined head-scratcher. Of course, it turns out they were right all along, and the new jacket became iconic for a couple of generations of high school and college marching band folks. I'm sure BD's sudden visual dominance had nothing at all to do with that either. The music, meanwhile, was single-source, intense and blew the roof off of every show they were in. It's definitely a show where I felt that there was no choice but for them to win. That said, Cadets felt solidly locked into second. Nobody was going to challenge their run-and-gun West Side Story show, but they weren't catching BD either. This is my favorite of all of their versions of WSS - it's way more complex than the '84 show and doesn't need the bells and whistles of the '09 production. Mambo is my one of my favorite charts from the whole season. Phantom Regiment expanded on their '93 show concept a bit and came back with brighter, tighter and faster charts, and to me a vastly improved battery. They also knew what the audience wanted, and the crab step closed the show out with a bang. And that guard - wow. The '93 show might have been more "classic" Phantom, but '94 kind of moved them slightly out of their comfort zone, and it was pretty awesome. Cavaliers pushed a little harder into classical and wind ensemble literature, and while 4th is nothing to sneeze at, it just *felt* like the corps was drifting a bit. It was not a terribly engaging show, and Sensemaya in particular might have been one of the strangest openers played in all of DCI at that time. The closer also felt like a massive swing-and-miss and didn't fit at all with everything else. History shows they righted the ship after, but as much of a Cavaliers fan as I am, this is... not my favorite show. Vanguard veered hard back into theatrical production, and The Red Poppy is a bright, massive show that feels like it shouldn't be played in small stadiums. (I feel the same way about "The Bluecoats") Everything about it just looked "big." Russian Sailors Dance was the highlight of this one. Madison Scouts put on the first of three Latin jazz shows, and I think this is the one everybody sleeps on. The visual production was stellar - the whole drill, like SCV, just "felt" big, with a ton of field coverage. Malaga, of course, set everyone on fire, but their arrangement of Cuban Overture is a classic on its own. If you're a more recent Madison fan, check this show out - it's worth it. (more coming)

They did use Premier snares in 1989 - the Yamaha free floaters weren't done yet. Mike

If BD switched to Ludwig, they'd have used Yamaha, Dynasty, Pearl, System Blue and Ludwig in the last 20+ years. That's almost a full bingo card. Mike

I had good luck with them when my old HS converted. Good sound, decent price. Mike

I'd pay cash money if you still have a copy somewhere. Mike

As I alluded to in 1992, for me this is the Year that DCI Got Weird. Funny personal story - after returning from basic training, I had totally forgotten that DCI was on and stumbled across it on PBS mid-performance. I had no clue what I was watching or hearing, and when they were done and announced "Star of Indiana," my face probably told it all. Then the Cadets came out with their angry, chaotic Holsinger show, and I was scratching my head ever more. Felt like I was taking crazy pills. It wasn't until I got the CD's for Christmas that I found out what any of the other corps had done. Cadets went Dark in '93, completely unlike anything they had shown anyone before. We're looking at it with 30 years of hindsight, but they managed to completely reinvent themselves seemingly overnight. The drumline is just towering, legendary, whatever you want to call it. That said, Star should have won. Silence as a weapon had never been used in DCI before, and the Bill Cook quote from the '92 thread said it best when he said they designed a show with no break point for the audience to exhale and applaud. In 2020 that's called Monday, but at the time it was a novel concept. Angular minimal drill, angular minimal uniforms, liberal use of body movement and an off-the-charts musical demand combined for a revolutionary program for what it represented. Phantom reinvented themselves in '93 while still staying (mostly) true to their roots. The Ginastera arrangements are way less '80's' than their previous few years, and Fire of Eternal Glory brought the house down. Death Hunt was a great closer, if not classical in the slightest. (I personally liked the '94 version better.) Blue Devils went nuts with the Don Ellis musical program. Odd meters, massive hornline runs... it was a technician's paradise. As we know, it was also the end of the "Blue Devils" nightclub look. Not a total reinvention yet, but you could feel it was definitely coming. Cavaliers put together a show that harkened back to their previous years' championship in overall effect, but the music wasn't nearly as seamless. Or, to be honest, as good. You could see what they were going for, for sure, but this does not appear in my Cavaliers Pantheon. Awesomely cool guard uniforms, though. Madison Scouts put on a pretty messy show in a rainstorm. Definitely not as tight as the 92 production, and the finale (custom composition) didn't wow me. Another one I tend to skip over, especially considering what they do the next few years. Yeah, for Santa Clara Vanguard, read Lee Rudnicki's book. It felt very much like a revolution against their populist musical/opera image and a commitment to modernizing their classical music focus. It definitely felt modern, but like Cavaliers and Madison, they didn't strike paydirt until later (years later, in their case). Crossmen tried to deliver a conceptual successor to their wildly successful 1992 show, but couldn't capture the same magic. The drum feature stands out in this show for it's take-no-prisoners approach. Bluecoats managed to rebound from their fuzzy 1992 Beatles show with a more straightforward set of tunes. Round Midnight was very cool, and the Night in Tunisia tag was neat, but Bluecoats were not in the business of capturing your minds yet - just your hearts. Blue Knights jumped head-first into ... well... no idea, actually. I actually dig the Star Trek charts, but the drum feature (though famous on a technical level) didn't fit at all and for me kind of ruined the flow of the show. Glassmen's uniforms... capture the spirit of this year, for sure. The music itself was really nice, and Sailing is a beautiful song (ended up using the source music in my wedding - thanks, Glassmen!) Finally, Colts put on a fairly tame show by '93 standards, with a mostly conventional set of jazz tunes that, while not blowing anyone out of the water, definitely felt Finals-worthy in quality. The horns in particular are very solid. (Honorable mention - not sure who I would have put them over, but Boston should have made their first Finals this year! Russian Easter Overture was awesome. VK's William Tell is one of my favorite drum features of the '90's, and Freelancer's hornline delivered the most legendary opener you've likely never heard or seen.) I realize I'm being way less wordy for this season, and that's because overall, especially considering where DCI ended up going, '93 was a definite transition year that in many ways missed the mark for me. It just felt like an 'off' year where designers exploded out of the box so hard that it merely left a mess dripping down the walls. Things evolved again in '94, and I think lessons learned from '93 might have helped with subsequent years' programming. Mike

... maybe? ... <shrug> Depends on how good the shows are. Mike

Oh, man - I've been waiting for this one. 🙂 Very few years can match '92 for overall quality down the line. In my personal list, I'd put them on par with '95, '02 and '18 - not a weakness in the bunch. Cavaliers, of course, won their first championship on the back of a stunning visual program and an ahead-of-their-time battery. The hornline hardly brought up the rear either - they were much improved from previous years. It didn't hurt that the full-scale revolution (hah!) in DCI programming was in swing this year, though it's '93 where it finally broke through. Gavorkna Fanfare was unlike any opener every played by a championship corps to that point, including Star's dramatic emphasis on technical playing the year before. My personal favorite was Scottish Dances, as the geometry of the drill was simply inspired. Cadets snuck in to 2nd with a passionate and very hammer-over-the-head GE program. Man, it was good though. I have no idea about demographic data, but it just "felt" like a young corps (or maybe a young-to-DCI corps) that found its legs as the summer went on. Holsinger was definitely a stylistic shift for them, but it sure felt like the right choice. Star veered towards the mainstream in a year where everyone else veered away. The show is legendary, of course, for the reactions it caused in DCI fandom. As a production, though, it's got all of the classic Star elements, and for most of us, the first time (either ever, or at least in many years) that they had a full battery. And man did they bring heat. Blue Devils are really a Tale of Two Halves in '92. Cuban Fire was a classic BD-Jazz suite, and a really entertaining one too. The battery felt messy at points, but the "feel" of the show was on point. And then, of course, the closer, which was as much of a statement of "because we can" as anything else. Love, love, love this show - have listened to it probably a couple of hundred times at this point. Madison revamped City of Angels, and ... well... latin jazz'ed it up. The brass came across night and day better than the year before - every note just felt tight and exact. #### near like a sonic laser. The battery's feature in Funny is an all-time classic that DCI and Flo still use occasionally during breaks. Kudos to the arrangers this year - they took the skeleton from 1991 and made it into a fully armed and operational battle station. Crossmen's battery. Enough said. One of the all time greats. I managed to snag a handwritten copy of the score to the drum feature a few years ago - I feel like framing it. I mean, the rest of the show featured a massive brass upgrade from 1991 (which was a massive upgrade from 1990) and a very sophisticated program built around it, but ... yeah. Battery. Santa Clara went retro, and it's a fun, fun watch. It's not going to reinvent anyone's notion of drum corps, but honestly - it's just an entertaining show. I can't really find fault in their performance, but I think they probably were rightly placed in 7th. They were cleaner than Phantom, and not as sophisticated as Crossmen. Phantom... leaves me conflicted. I absolutely adore this show, and I still think of the closer as the "definitive" 1812 arrangement. That said, it's painfully obvious that it's built on the back of arrangements used many years before, and the drum feature was just an absolute mess. It feels harsh to my heart to say they deserved 8th on the night, but... in the cold light of day they probably were, even before being slotted-to-their-face by the judges. Blue Knights are definitely the ugly duckling of the finals lineup, and it's not very fair to them. They had to go on, of course, after VK, and people still weren't ready for the hardcore symphonic stuff they were bringing. The middle segment of the show has a lot in common with their "Because" show decades later, in that they kind of discard the traditional 4-act structure of drum corps and push and pull the parts around. It definitely gives you a bit of a time-warp feeling when you watch it - I'd have believed you if you'd told me the show was 9 minutes long. Or 15 minutes. Closer was my favorite part - I love what they did with a classic Wind Ensemble tune. VK's finals swan-song was everything and the kitchen sink. (Or did they throw that in during a later year?) Great music pulled along an all-over-the-place visual package. Having worked for a corps that also bucked convention, I don't know how they got judges to go along with it. Other than just ... being good. Bluecoats' first foray into The Beatles was, forgive me, a mess. It's one of those shows where "I know they're trying to tell me something, but ###### if I know what." Yes, I'm being smarmily superior, but they did managed to upgrade a little bit the next time they tried it. Finally, Freelancers stayed in finals with Walton's 1st Symphony. I don't know who did their percussion books, but they had a great ear for adding all sorts of fun little timbers and effects that sound normal to us now, but at the time not many peers were doing. And like the year before, they looked marvelous on the field. Honorable mentions go to Glassmen's new age program (that might have been better than their '93 finalist breakthrough) and Boston's *almost* there Russian show. 92-93-94 Boston puts me on edge for being juuuuust on the precipice. I'll have more ...controversial... opinions, I think, for 1993 - The Year DCI Got Really Weird. Mike

Man, oh man, do I have thoughts about 1991. My DCI mania was in full swing at this point, but despite living down the road in Austin, my parents wouldn't let me attend Finals. (It wasn't until *2008* that I got to attend my first and only Finals contest.) I did get the audition materials for Sky Ryders that year, but again, parents said no. That was as close as I got to performing in a corps. (Still have that packet, too.) Ended up playing in a minicorps later with a guy from Sky; great dude. So Star to me was really the first "modern" style champion, where the music isn't Shiny Happy People Holding Hands. The arrangements are darker, and there's more of an emphasis on technical ability (c'mon, mello runs throughout, anyone?). Cavies in '92 went whole hog into the land of angry music, but Star helped them along the way. The drill also represented a massive jump in degree of difficulty from 1990 and caused other top corps to follow suit. Absolutely a deserving champion; I can't even fathom them losing. It kind of bothers me that because of the show title, everyone lumps the 1991 Cavaliers show design in with the 1989 and 1990 ones. The '91 production had nothing stylistically in common with what they'd done before. It was angry and growly until it gave way to light at the end, the drill flew to all corners of the field, and it had an intense energy that was fairly unique for a Christmas show. I still watch this one - it was solid across the board. For me, Phantom put on one of their all-time most entertaining shows in '91. Even today, it never feels like it takes 12 minutes to watch - it just flies by! Pagliacci brought the house down, and of course Bacchanale... Santa Clara's percussion steals the show in Miss Saigon from the very opening. The brass feel like they're playing keep-up with them at the start before everything locks in, and they've got massive drill (and flag) moves, but it's all about the drums in this one. Wish they hadn't used white shoes though - that's so '80s. We've talked about it on here a bunch of times, but I wish that BD would bring this music into the 2020's. It wouldn't require a whole lot of changes, honestly. It's unlike anything they had done before at that point, and not again really until '95. It's angry, stabby and dark... and I love it. The Cadets managed to take three uniquely *non*-similar pieces and turn them into three classics. I still compare every version of Short Ride to this one. And while Prelude, Fugue and Riffs is awesomely Cadets, I love how in Letter from Home they managed to hit the brakes on the whole production and just... take a moment to create a moment. Again, it felt like '91 was a transition year away from the '80s, where corps were actually trying new things. Madison made the broadcast that year as well, thanks to a tie in Semis, and their first attempt at City of Angels was bright, shiny and bold. Big open brass sounds and a pretty dense battery book accompanied an ok visual design, I think. One thing they did managed to nail this year though was the idea of a complete musical package that flowed from start to finish. Granted, it's because it all came from the same source material, but still - it got them away from the "let's throw two to four jazz songs together" mentality of the 80's. Crossmen really stepped up their game in '91. That was the year they debuted those gorgeous Premier drums, and they threw down massively overpowered battery charts compared to the rest of the corps (I have some of the drum sheets - they're amazing). The brass definitely brought the heat, and the overall design was a leap forward for them, but that battery is what they're remembered for. Blue Knights got kind of a bum rap in the early 90's for playing music that wasn't as in-your-face as their peers. In retrospect, they were just ahead of the game. Their symphonic stuff was really sophisticated, and I think we appreciate them more now. And they made it all sound and look so deceptively friggin' easy. Freelancers really put together an old school show of "hey, let's play stuff" while picking some really advanced stuff to play! The closer (Bells) was my favorite part of the show, just because it really had a triumphant "festival" sort of feel that showed off every section. And color-wise, they just looked great on the field! Bluecoats dropped down a bit, but Nutville is one of their great "classic" openers from the powder blue era. Whiter Shade of Pale was a bit of a head scratcher then (man, I wish they could take that on these days in a show) that kind of came off a little flat. Finally, Sky Ryders put together a solid show with the Broadway-style music they became famous for. The drumline definitely stood out with a very aggressive book, and the corps as a whole was very athletic and on-the-move. Others that stood out to me - VK's "Apollo" show strayed dangerously close to "halftime" design but didn't sacrifice drum corps quality. Spirit's "Glory" managed to turn what was their typical Southern style both symphonic and dark. And Glassmen's "After All" closer is still one of my favorite Old School ballads ever. Mike

DCI will move on submissions to them in less than 24 hours. Seen it firsthand. Mike

While 1989 was my introduction to DCI and won my heart, 1990 was the year it stole my soul. It was a stacked Finals lineup from top to bottom, for sure! I've often said this was one of my favorite Cadets title shows, and I'm still of that opinion. It had a little bit of everything, and Bernstein and the Cadets are a natural fit. Star of Indiana looked like a million bucks, and their brass sounded like it. I wasn't impressed with the 5-man snareline back then, but I grew to appreciate it as I got older. I'd have put Phantom above Blue Devils by a hair. Bacchanale - buckle your seat belts. BD's jazz version of Pinball Wizard was weird, but they brought a take-no-prisoners approach to the battery that I loved! While I love SCV's Carmen in the "classic DCI" sense, there's no way that slow of a show would get recognized by judges today. It's long been my gripe that modern tempos tend to automatically exclude some classic repertoire without having to twist them beyond recognition. Carmen is my exhibit A. This was the first year (for me) that Crossmen stepped into the Perennial Finalist category, and New York Voices was an awesome group to go to for catchy and bright charts. I still love that show from top to bottom. Bluecoats brought a mixed bag that year. Caravan was high energy and entertaining, and then the rest was kind of ... there. '90 and '91 were transformative years for show design, and I think the 'Coats clearly got caught in the middle of it. Madison had a *really* borked show that year. Remembrance was a classic (as evidenced by it's re-use since), but it had nothing to do with the opener and closer, which were a weird strain of laid back bop-jazz. Much like Bluecoats, I think that they stand out as many of the top groups were starting to look at total packaging, and Madison wasn't there yet. (They managed to fix that kind of by default with City of Angels, and by '93, pretty much everyone was in on theme shows.) VK and Spirit were, to me, Classic VK and Spirit, for good and for ill. VK's charts felt "safe," but they brought the energy. Spirit put on an intense show, but never cranked it above 8 or lower than about 5. Finally, Dutch Boy put together a great set of charts that worked as a full show. (Once in a Lifetime is still a personal favorite of mine.) Overall, 1990 felt like both the last gasp of 80's drum corps and a pause before show programming *really* went off the rails. I submit that Cadets were the last straightfoward bright, old-school-ish music book to win a championship. The next year Star managed to drag everyone a bit into the future, kicking and screaming. Mike

Oh, man - I *loved* those split shells. They did it again in '91 with the free floaters - it was beautiful. Mike

This was also the year that Blue Devils used Premier prototype free-floating snares, if I remember correctly. Star did too. Mike

Definitely felt bigger than 0.3. There was a massive leap in complexity between Star and Cadets. But then a massive leap between the bottom 6 and Star too. Mike